Government Recommends Cars With Smarter Brakes

mrspoonsi writes The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is adding crash imminent braking and dynamic braking support to its list of recommended advanced safety features for new cars. The former uses sensors to activate the brakes if a crash is imminent and the driver already hasn't. Dynamic braking support, on the other hand, increases stopping power if you haven't put enough pressure on the brake pedal. Like lane-departure and front collision warning systems, these features are available on some models already — this move gives them high-profile attention, though. And for good reason: As the NHSTA tells it, a third of 2013's police-reported car accidents were the rear-end crashes and a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!) or fully before impact.

Comments

I have an even better idea

[EmagGeek]

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road. THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE. If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.

A coworker of mine was hit a couple of weeks ago by a woman who, after fleeing the scene, was discovered to have had caused FOUR injury accidents in the trailing 12 months, had been dropped from her insurance two months prior, and who, despite all of that, had not had her license suspended, and was not even ticketed for leaving the scene of the accident she caused with my coworker.

It's our complete unwillingness to hold people accountable for their actions that has created the need for EVAN M0AR government regulation to "protect us from ourselves."

People who are incapable of driving shouldn't be driving. Period.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Also yearly drivers testing with a road test once you hit 65!

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And daily test drivers under 26

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a right to freedom of movement, though.

I'd be fine with only a small driving or needing to drive. I live in a major city in the UK. I can walk or get the bus or train almost anywhere I'm interested in going, both for excursions and my daily life.

You'll find it's the same around most of the world.

Sadly, though, the USA has a large number of places that basically have no infrastructure whatsoever. The only way to get about, to live your life, is to own and use a car. In these places, not only are dangerous drivers tolerated, but so are dangerous cars (clunkers) -- because the alternative is to deprive most of your citizens the ability to get about.

This could've been fixed in the past (avoid urban sprawl), but it's too late now, and people have a right to get about the place. Banning them from driving in a place where there's 20 miles between where anyone lives and where any food is sold or any places of employment are, and there's no public transport whatsoever, is basically a death sentence.

What are you going to do about this?

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Well let's see, lose your license in the USA and it's an automatic felony conviction for not having a driver's license. Then you can't drive anywhere, you get fired from your job, and you'll never find another job as a convicted felon, so your life is already over. It would be more merciful just to execute dangerous drivers, don't you think?

Re:I have an even better idea

[bill_mcgonigle]

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road.

Correct.

THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE.

Stop acting brainwashed. The Right to Travel is a fundamental human right. Go check out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that your government probably signed on to if you don't believe me. It does not mean that humans have a right to crawl through the muddy forests to get from place to place - it means all humans have the fundamental right to travel in the common manner of a society. Whether that's a donkey cart or an SUV with DVD Entertainment System or an Airbus A340.

There are even places where automobile travel is the only allowed method of travel - we have an area around here where the local road was taken over for an Interstate and the only way in or out is an exit.

If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.

Correct. There's a mechanism for that.

No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

The Right to Travel is a fundamental liberty and we have a way to deal with taking away liberties for the protection of society. It doesn't require parroting some bullshit statist rhetoric your phys ed. teacher told you in high school.

Now your insurance company - they ought to have a lot to say about your competency as a driver. Sadly, they almost never do, except in aggregate, such as very high insurance rates in MA where the passing grade on a DMV test is 60%. You ought to be able to save $400 a year if you score 95% or better, but no ... that wouldn't be _fair_. Regulators gotta regulate, whether it does harm or not, so everybody pays high rates and the incentives to improve are eliminated.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

But then how would they be able to justify eventually mandating smart breaks and forcing manufacturers to add in features like remote breaking. So Police can simply hit a button in their car and stop yours. Why would they want idiots off the road when they can leverage their idiocy to force restrictions to everyone?

Re: I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Many new cars have these smart brakes now. Making them mandatory is not a big deal just like mirrors are mandatory now even though they probably weren't in the days of the Ford-T.

I agree that repeat accident causers shouldnt be allowed to drive. But your approach requires people to have accidents before preventing more accidents. Secondly, we are not provided statistics that say repeat offenders cause the vast majority of rear end crashes. There can also be good drivers with that one time moment of inattention or blinded by the sun, etc. In such cases, smart brakes help.

Re:I have an even better idea

[ShanghaiBill]

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road.

That is not a better idea, just a different idea. There is no reason we can't do both. But for every accident avoided, the cost of improving brakes is likely to be far, far less than the economic cost of excluding millions of people from driving, in a society where driving is nearly essential for daily life. Also, the brake improvement can actually happen, while the probability of politicians banning a significant number of people from driving is about zero.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Jeremi]

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road. THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE. If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.

I was a safe driver for 11 years; no tickets, no accidents, no "close calls", no complaints. Then one day I was driving to the airport early in the morning, got distracted by my radio, didn't notice that the traffic light was red, and ran right into a car that was (legally) crossing the intersection.

My question: should I have been driving for those previous 11 years? If not, why not? What kind of test would you have had me take to show that I was a dangerous driver? Or, if I was a safe driver except on that one morning, how would your plan have prevented my accident?

The fact is, most people are safe drivers most of the time. Except for when they're not.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a right to freedom of movement, though.

There is not, however, a right to endanger other people while practicing that freedom of movement. And a 4,000 pound vehicle barreling down the highway at 65 miles per hour is a pretty big danger if you don't know what you are doing, or are simply not paying attention.

There is also no right to avoid personal responsibility for your actions. If you are a dangerous driver, tough toenails, you lose your license. I don't fucking care that you don't know how you are going to get to and from work now, you should have thought of that before. Now accept some personal fucking responsibility.

That said...

I do agree with the concept of freedom of movement, and feel that if a government is going to requisition land for roads, and only permit motorized vehicles on it, then that government should also be required to provide some sort of public transportation for people who either don't have a motorized vehicle, or are unable to operate a motorized vehicle for whatever reason.

Re:I have an even better idea

[thegarbz]

Don't be absurd. The right to travel does not have anything to do with the method used for transportation. Your road is missing? So sad for you, catch a bus, a train, a taxi, ride a horse through the bush, or if you're not landlocked use a boat or any one of the many other things you can do to exercise your right to "travel".

People most definitely do NOT have any protected right what so ever, in any law or any country or even international regulations, recommendations or otherwise to operate a motor vehicle.

It is a privilege requiring you to register your intent with a governing body.

Re:I have an even better idea

[TWX]

It's not the "dangerous clunkers" here that are so much the problem as the uninsured, who cause accidents and cannot pay for what they've done to other people. I'm starting to think that automatic impoundment should be the default when certain kinds of paperwork are not in order, like no insurance and no or suspended license, and that the car cannot be gotten out of impound without proof that the paperwork has now been corrected, and if the paperwork condition was discovered as a result of an accident investigation, the victim (the other driver) can petition to be awarded the vehicle as compensation for the damage they received if there's no insurance and no forthcoming reimbursement.

Driving isn't a right, it's a privilege. I've paid for that privilege my entire adult life, maintaining my registration, my insurance, and my license despite having no at-fault accidents. I expect others to do the same.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop acting brainwashed. The Right to Travel is a fundamental human right.

EmagGeek did not say there is no right to travel. EmagGeek said there is no right to drive, which there is not.

What is the difference you ask?

There is a certain amount of danger involved with operating a 4,000 pound vehicle at 65 miles per hour. Danger to other people. It's why we license people to drive, and why we can take that license away (after due process of law, of course).

all humans have the fundamental right to travel in the common manner of a society. Whether that's a donkey cart or an SUV with DVD Entertainment System or an Airbus A340.

Last I checked, pilots required a license too. Which like a driver's license, can be taken away.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And Monthly 26-65

Re:I have an even better idea

[frank_adrian314159]

The fact is, most people are safe enough drivers most of the time. Except for when they're not.FTFY. Very few drivers are "safe" in any particularly strict sense of the term. Myself included. We're sort of like Windows code in that respect. Safe enough? Yes, as long as they're properly monitored and regulated. Other than that? I wouldn't share a road with them, if I had a choice.

Re:I have an even better idea

[CanHasDIY]

Not that I disagree with the premise, but it's important to note that some people don't have access to busses nor horses (which, take it from the voice of experience, are really hard to park without being hassled), and cabs are too expensive... but they do own a car.

If we had kick-ass, Euro style public transit all over America, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But we don't.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

>It's our complete unwillingness to hold people accountable for their actions that has created the need for EVAN M0AR government regulation to "protect us from ourselves."

People who are incapable of driving shouldn't be driving. Period.

The ones that are truly incapable aren't. It's the ones who look like they could be capable, but aren't truly capable of driving safely who are.

Besides, this is from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, not your local police. They don't have jurisdiction to take people off the roads. I actually PREFER their regulation to what your idea would risk, which is a more invasive and intrusive police state.

Deciding what safety features work in cars, recommending and even mandating options? I prefer it over what you'd suggest, as it puts the burden on manufacturing over living.

Re: I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. The car should immediately fall apart in strategic areas prior to impact.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Mr D from 63]

Its hard to pre-emptively determine who is safe or not except through our driving tests, which are pretty much a joke. Even with tougher driving tests, a person would do just fine in the test when they aren't texting or allowing other distractions to take hold like the do all to often.

But, its hard to have any hope of good drivers overall when it seems that 20% of people seem to stupid to how to use a passing lane properly.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesnt matter how much insurance someone has, if they cripple or disable you with their inability to drive then you have to live with that for the rest of your life.

Re: I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of "safety barriers", which by the way get hit way too often judging by the paint and rubber left behind on barriers protecting even a modest curve... We need spiked, corridor of death walls. Like 6' jagged spikes everywhere. When someone has to get pulled off, their car becomes a trophy on to go on display so everyone else gets the message. The problem of inattentive and unsafe drivers will take care of itself, through attrition if nothing else.

Re:I have an even better idea

[kheldan]

Let's just train and test drivers more thoroughly to keep unqualified drivers off the road in the first place. Driving may be a privelege and not a 'right', but just beefing up the punishment side of things isn't going to help much compared to making drivers competent in the first place. We're living in an era where people are getting less and less skilled at pretty much everything, and have need to learn fewer and fewer things, because of the internet and because of more and more cheap gadgets.

I do not approve of any system that will arbitrarily override my basic controls of the vehicle, it's a bad idea. Why should I or anyone relinquish control of braking to some anonymous software writer(s) that may or may not have covered all possible contingencies properly? Just one more system to fail in your vehicle. No, I propose we educate, train, and test drivers more rigorously, and if they're not truly competent, then they don't get to drive.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Waffle Iron]

I do not approve of any system that will arbitrarily override my basic controls of the vehicle,

You do realize that most cars sold in the last couple of decades have computers that can override your inputs and monkey around with your brakes whenever you're trying to speed up or slow down the vehicle?

Re:I have an even better idea

[gwjgwj]

If you cannot drive yourself, then hire a drver.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe.

I've observed that the people I know who've caused an accident have committed the same mistake that led to the accident a thousand times before, but they just got away with it.

Think of all those times you were distracted by the radio but didn't crash. The "safe" people aren't distracted by the radio ever.

Re:I have an even better idea

[HornWumpus]

That's more or less how it is. So they drive even worse clunkers as they know they will lose them every time they talk to a cop.

Then the cops stop doing anything out of frustration, leaving the laws selectively enforced.

Re: I have an even better idea

[HornWumpus]

Screw that, we need airbag poisoned face spikes to be required on proven dangerous drivers cars. If that doesn't make them focus then the problem solves itself.

Re:I have an even better idea

[silas_moeckel]

We did have that right early on, the anti car people (aka buggy whip association) pushed to get that snowball rolling to put ever increasing restrictions and idiotic ordinances in place.

You do not have an effective freedom to associate if you do not have the freedom to travel one requires the other to be effective.

As to how to fix it I do not have a good answer but right now the balance is off.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Ichijo]

the cost of improving brakes is likely to be far, far less than the economic cost of excluding millions of people from driving, in a society where driving is nearly essential for daily life.

Or taking bad drivers off the road would create better drivers and help free ourselves from an overdependence on a single mode of travel (a single point of failure), one that consumes massive amounts of land for roads and parking, drains similarly massive amounts of money to overseas oil and car companies, and creates respiratory problems, up to $1,600 per person per year.

Re:I have an even better idea

[HornWumpus]

Most ABS brakes systems degrade to regular brakes systems when the ABS fails. Same is true for power brakes.

Brake by wire is different. Some of them degrade to 'pedal goes to floor, brakes do nothing'.

They universally have almost no pedal feel. You won't know you have a warped disk by feeling it.

Re:I have an even better idea

[dargaud]

I completely disagree with you. If there were enough people with (rightfully so) suspended licences in the US they would work to improve the infrastructure. You know that there are cities in the US that you CANNOT cross on foot ? Yes, I've lived there.

Another country that has driving peculiarities is France where you can buy licence-less car (voitures sans permis). Small cars that you can drive without license, or with a suspended license. They legally top out to 60km/h but I've seen some beefed up to go 120km/h. When you seen one you KNOW it's driven either by a drunk or by a blind 90 year old. Fuck those people and the car they rode onto. Let them walk or bike.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Age has nothing to do with it. I'm 28 and have driven less than 2 hours a year for the past 11 years. I was probably a better driver at 17 than I am now. Any tests should be based on experience, not age. And the training to get your license should be way, way higher.

Re:I have an even better idea

[drinkypoo]

Don't be absurd. The right to travel does not have anything to do with the method used for transportation. Your road is missing? So sad for you, catch a bus, a train, a taxi, ride a horse through the bush, or if you're not landlocked use a boat or any one of the many other things you can do to exercise your right to "travel".

LET THEM EAT CAKE!

Historical accuracy of quote aside, your argument basically boils down to "it is not a problem for me, so fuck you" and that is not a compelling argument in any situation, so perhaps you might want to consider rolling it up into a small cylinder and taking it rectally.

People most definitely do NOT have any protected right what so ever, in any law or any country or even international regulations, recommendations or otherwise to operate a motor vehicle.

Yes, and when you combine that with the fact that at least here in the USA, the automobile companies deliberately attacked and all but destroyed the public transportation system to the extent that being forced to use it is little more than a punishment for being poor, the result is deprivation of the right to travel.

I do think driving should be a privilege, but our society is set up such that if it is not a right, then people are punished for being poor. Aren't the poor already punished enough by corporatism?

I'm all for fixing the public transportation system, but HAHAHAHAHA

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

in a society where driving is nearly essential for daily life.

and there's another thing that needs fixing.

Re:I have an even better idea

[tibit]

This government regulation isn't about protecting you from idiot drivers. It's about protecting you from the long tail of accidents that happen in spite of everyone following the rules. People aren't infallible. Occasionally, we make mistakes even with the best of training. Unless you're a race driver, your driver "training" is nowhere near the amount of training the olympic athletes receive. Yet, invariably enough, in every olympics there's a bunch of snafus committed by the best trained people. That should be the only thing you need to see to realize that, once again, no matter how well prepared you are, you will make mistakes even if your weally, weally wish not to. I mean fuck, these people are fucking competing for olympic medals. They are the best of the best worldwide. And they do mess up. So yes, no matter how good you think you are, you will commit random errors on the road that may prove deadly. The regulations and the technical means here are to make those random things less deadly. That's all.

Re:I have an even better idea

[PPH]

This.

No mod points left, but I agree. We ae trying everything to get people out of private cars and onto public transportation with little effect. Just pull the licences from the worst drivers and hand them a transit pass. Reduce traffic volume and save money by postponing expansion projects. And do so by getting the crappiest drivers off the road.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon, safeway, instacart, and a plethora of others deliver .....

Re:I have an even better idea

[ToasterMonkey]

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road. THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE. If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.

I was a safe driver for 11 years; no tickets, no accidents, no "close calls", no complaints. Then one day I was driving to the airport early in the morning, got distracted by my radio, didn't notice that the traffic light was red, and ran right into a car that was (legally) crossing the intersection.

My question: should I have been driving for those previous 11 years? If not, why not? What kind of test would you have had me take to show that I was a dangerous driver? Or, if I was a safe driver except on that one morning, how would your plan have prevented my accident?

The fact is, most people are safe drivers most of the time. Except for when they're not.

OMG! You're saying the red light camera didn't dissuade you from driving through a red light??!!!!11 /snark

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Any tests should be based on experience, not age. And the training to get your license should be way, way higher.

Any tests should be based on competence , not experience or age.

FTFY.

I don't care how much "experience" you have behind the wheel, or how old you are - prove that you are competent to operate the vehicle safely, and you can drive. Fail to prove that, and get your license revoked.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a right to freedom of movement, though.

Nobody's restricting that by refusing to issue you a license. You can take a bus, taxi, train, plane, walk, bike, get a ride from a friend, call Uber, or ride a moped. Nobody's limiting your freedom to move - they're simply saying you have to move about in a manner that doesn't end up with you causing death or injury to people.

If you live someplace where you "need" a car to get around, you should either: 1) Learn how to operate a vehicle safely; 2) move someplace where there is no need for you to operate a vehicle; You might say you exercise your "freedom of movement" by doing either one of those things.

Re:I have an even better idea

[drinkypoo]

these people are fucking competing for olympic medals. They are the best of the best worldwide

While your point is well-taken, these people are the best of the best at sprinting quickly or throwing a hammer or at mixing skiing and shooting a small-caliber rifle, they're not necessarily the best at anything else.

Re:I have an even better idea

[khallow]

That is not a better idea, just a different idea.

No, it is a better idea because it reduces highway deaths (in the US) without a significant increase in the cost of driving.

than the economic cost of excluding millions of people from driving

Many tens of millions of people are already banned from driving in the US due to age, driving history, or current state of impairment. What's known about the US situation is that a considerable fraction of accidents in the US come from drivers who are already banned from driving either by not having a license or insurance or by driving while impaired. Something like half of all US accidents involve people who shouldn't be driving at the time due to some combination of these factors.

while the probability of politicians banning a significant number of people from driving is about zero.

Here's a counterexample from Texas concerning uninsured drivers.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

you're a bastard! I actually googled EVAN M0RE

Re:I have an even better idea

[drinkypoo]

Just pull the licences from the worst drivers and hand them a transit pass.

The economic impact of doing this would make shifting to renewables look like redeeming a coupon for a few cents off of pot noodles.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Immerman]

An easy, partial solution - scooters and motorbikes. I've met several people who adopted them after losing their license. They can be far cheaper to both own and operate than a car, and when you reduce the total mass by an order of magnitude you reduce the potential damage to others in a collision by the same factor. Of course that proportionally *increases* the risk to the driver as well, but why shouldn't reckless drivers be faced with bearing the bulk of the damage from future collisions? With luck it will even improve their situational awareness when they are once again allowed to operate a car.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Knuckles]

I do not approve of any system that will arbitrarily override my basic controls of the vehicle, it's a bad idea. Why should I or anyone relinquish control of braking to some anonymous software writer(s) that may or may not have covered all possible contingencies properly? Just one more system to fail in your vehicle. No, I propose we educate, train, and test drivers more rigorously, and if they're not truly competent, then they don't get to drive.

You may not approve, but ESC is mandatory for new cars in the US, and has been mandatory for longer in other places. It has very clearly improved safety.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Knuckles]

While your point is well-taken, these people are the best of the best at sprinting quickly or throwing a hammer or at mixing skiing and shooting a small-caliber rifle, they're not necessarily the best at anything else.

And they make mistake while doing these very things.

Re:I have an even better idea

[ColdWetDog]

You don't have a right to be able to afford anything. At least in any society beyond pure communism - which has never existed in groups of more than say, 100.

It would be a nice societal benefit to allow persons without much economic means to freely travel - but nothing on the order of a mandate. Now, most societies agree that people should be allowed to travel freely without undo government interference but there is nothing that says somebody else has to pay for it or allow an individual to put others at risk for economic or any other reason.

Re:I have an even better idea

[hey!]

I have an even better idea: let's find a way to fix human beings so that they're perfectly consistent in their behavior.

While certainly taking demonstrably bad drivers off the road is a no-brainer, even good drivers have lapses. My teenaged son is learning to drive, and whenever someone does something like cut us off I make a point of saying we can't assume the driver did it on purpose, or did it because he was an inconsiderate or bad person. Even conscientious and courteous drivers make mistakes or have lapses of attention.

It's the law of large numbers. If you spend a few hours on the road, you'll encounter thousands of drivers. A few of them will be really horrible drivers who shouldn't be on the road. But a few will be conscientious drivers having a bad day, or even a bad 1500 milliseconds.

Re:I have an even better idea

[viperidaenz]

The right to travel is not the right to drive a motor vehicle.

That's like confusing the right to bare arms with the right to obtain nuclear weapons.

Re:I have an even better idea

[bzipitidoo]

It was private railroad limitations and greed that spurred the creation of the public highway system.

Now in the US, all that's left of passenger rail service is Amtrak, plus a small resurgence of local subway and light rail service in large cities. Amtrak is terrible. Very expensive, slow, late, and poor coverrage. To get from California to Texas by passenger rail, they are likely to try to route you the long way around, through Chicago.

Re:I have an even better idea

[ultranova]

Driving isn't a right, it's a privilege.

No, it's not. Like the parent said, it's a necessity. Banning people from doing whatever they must to survive is neither effective nor reasonable. All you get is yet another class of outlaws. Who'll be driving the cheapest, most dangerous cars they can find, should "automatic impoundment" actually become a rule.

I've paid for that privilege my entire adult life, maintaining my registration, my insurance, and my license despite having no at-fault accidents. I expect others to do the same.

But they won't. You can punish them or try to minimize the damage caused by them, but not both. Such is life.

Re:I have an even better idea

[cascadingstylesheet]

It's not the "dangerous clunkers" here that are so much the problem as the uninsured, who cause accidents and cannot pay for what they've done to other people. I'm starting to think that automatic impoundment should be the default when certain kinds of paperwork are not in order, like no insurance and no or suspended license, and that the car cannot be gotten out of impound without proof that the paperwork has now been corrected, and if the paperwork condition was discovered as a result of an accident investigation, the victim (the other driver) can petition to be awarded the vehicle as compensation for the damage they received if there's no insurance and no forthcoming reimbursement.

The chance of that happening politically is zero.

"Yes, we can!" - drive without insurance, etc.

Re:I have an even better idea

[CrimsonAvenger]

That's like confusing the right to bare arms with the right to obtain nuclear weapons.

It should be noted that we DO have a right to wear short-sleeved shirts (weather permitting), and that it has little or nothing to do with the Right to Bear Arms....

Re:I have an even better idea

[ultranova]

You don't have a right to be able to afford anything. At least in any society beyond pure communism - which has never existed in groups of more than say, 100.

That is untrue. For example, food stamps are all about ensuring everyone can afford food.

Also, Cold War is over and you won. Congratulations. However, it also means that the Red Scare is no longer an effective rhetoric. Get over it already.

Re:I have an even better idea

[pepty]

Welcome to your new car, with mandatory breathalyzer ignition interlock.

Re:I have an even better idea

[jd2112]

That's like confusing the right to bare arms with the right to obtain nuclear weapons.

It should be noted that we DO have a right to wear short-sleeved shirts (weather permitting), and that it has little or nothing to do with the Right to Bear Arms....

We have a right to bear arms? What would I do with a bear arm? Doesn't the bear need it more than I do?

Re:I have an even better idea

[kheldan]

If I can disable it, or take my foot off the brake and have the brakes disengage, or press harder and have the brakes engage harder, then fine. If I suddenly find myself stomping on a pedal that does nothing because it has no mechanical linkage to the master cylinder, then that's a non-starter. Braking and steering systems MUST have a mechanical linkage to fall back on or I must classify such a vehicle 'intrinsically unsafe'.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a felony to drive without a licence, FFS.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

moreover, i've driven more hours than most olympians have trained. I should be less likely to err

Re:I have an even better idea

[Knuckles]

Most cars have an off switch which disables it, some cars have various settings, and on some you cannot completely disable it (e.g., it will in any case reenable at highway speeds) such as the new Ford models.

Not sure about mechanical failsaves, but in any case, while nothing is 100% fail safe I generally trust automotive engineers or I would not step into a car. A hydraulic circuit can fail as well, for example.

Re: I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet time/distance driving without an accident is how we measure driver safety. Wait, scratch that. It's the fucking definition of safe driving.

Re:I have an even better idea

[ShanghaiBill]

We are trying everything to get people out of private cars and onto public transportation with little effect.

We are trying almost nothing to get people out of private cars and onto public transportation. Far more money is spend building roads, than is spent on mass transit. Our zoning laws encourage sprawl and discourage or even ban high density housing. Last year in San Francisco, 95% of building permits were rejected. Instead the housing is going up in Tracy and Gilroy, a 40 minute freeway commute from downtown.

Re:I have an even better idea

[u801e]

If I had assaulted and injured four different people in the last 12 months, then I would be serving a prison sentence. Do you really think that someone whose license is suspended will simply stop driving? Perhaps they should be in jail. Then there's no way for them to drive regardless of the status of their license.

Re:I have an even better idea

[brunes69]

People shouldn't be driving. Period. Fixed that for you.

Re:I have an even better idea

[nukenerd]

Driving isn't a right, it's a privilege.

No, it's not. Like the parent said, it's a necessity. Banning people from doing whatever they must to survive is neither effective nor reasonable.

So no-one can ever be stopped from driving where you live? In the UK there are quite a few classes of people not allowed to drive. Children, people banned for the more serious traffic offences, the blind and poor sighted, and older people who fail the driving re-test they must take periodically. How they get around is their own problem. One solution is not to live somewhere they can only reach by driving a car. I live in a remote area and I accept that one day, when I get old, I might have to move into a city.

Re:I have an even better idea

[houghi]

If you do that 4 times in a row, the yes. there is a clear dfifference between a dangerous driver and somebody who had an accident.

And if you do not knwo that difference them yes, you should not be on the road anymore.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You absolutely have a right to travel by any means within your power. Just because a government removes that right, doesn't mean it's proper to call it a "privilege." I absolutely hate it when people use that misleading language. In the United States, we have limited rights to travel by automobile by law. Period. Don't call it a "privilege."

Re:I have an even better idea

[nukenerd]

You were a safe driver for 11 years but not as safe as one like yourself but who does not listen to the radio. Going by the data you have provided us you have a 1 in 11 chance of an accident per year, ongoing too if you keep listening.

Personally, I have always removed my car radios. Not particularly to avoid distraction, but because the space makes a handy cubbyhole, gives thieves less reason to break in, and because I don't like announcers having verbal diarrhea in my car.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a fine safety feature to me. Why do you think it would be a bad thing to prevent impaired people from operating their vehicles?

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You all have got to stop with this "driving is a privilege" crap. It is a highly dangerous attitude to hold. It allows others to have power over you in ways that you obviously aren't imagining. That sad attitude is, for instance, what allows states to suspend licenses for offenses that have absolutely nothing to do with driving. For instance, I live in one of those backwards states that suspends the licenses of young people who (otherwise legally) decide not to go to school. I am neither especially young nor a dropout so I have no personal interest in this, but I've seen what happens. People get jobs, they need to get to them, and then they get into a legal spiral they can't get out of for the inevitable driving without a license, which leads to insurance rates they can't pay, etc. Don't even get me started on license suspensions for things like failure to pay child support (which of course leads to no work, which leads to failure to pay child support, etc.) No, that hasn't happened to me either. I'm simply capable of putting myself in another's shoes for the purposes of analyzing a situation. People around here should try it sometimes.

Privileges don't exist when it comes to government. The Constitution mentions no authority of government to grant privileges. One might argue that letters of marque and reprisal are privileges, but that's specific and not relevant here. We simply cannot allow this to be changed in society, because it allows crap like what I mentioned above and worse to happen. Driving IS a right, at least in the US. It is a right because there's nothing in the Constitution that says you don't have it. (The Constitution, for the under-educated, is primarily a list of RESTRICTIONS on what government is allowed to do. It is NOT an exhaustive list of rights people have. It even says so right in it. So don't give me the "there's no right to drive in the Constitution" garbage either.)

Now, rights in a society aren't necessarily absolute when one is interacting with or in the proximity of others who also have rights. It is not unreasonable for there to be restrictions associated with driving that actually have to do with driving safely, and it is not unreasonable that you should be able to prove a certain skill level to be able to drive in public. It is also not unreasonable to insist that one's equipment be in proper order. Those things have to do with driving. But not following, repeating, or believing in this mythical "privilege" garbage spouted routinely by judges and the DMV is where we need to start in terms of getting rid of UNREASONABLE regulations and restrictions.

Adopting that attitude is also necessary when it comes to pushing back against agencies like the NHTSA, which proposes the most ridiculous garbage in human history a lot of the time. Cars are very safe now, and I think they must be bored or something. This is the same agency that has proposed things like always on cameras in the cabs of trucks, for example, as if they haven't made truck drivers' lives miserable enough (and no, I'm not a trucker either). This agency is how we go from not texting while driving (reasonable) to proposed bans on the existence of electronics anywhere near a driver, except of course for things meant to spy on said driver (unreasonable). If the car radio had just been invented they'd be dragging out the same BS they have to say about things like in car entertainment systems and even now hands free cell phone kits. Their initial proposed bans on handhelds having been enacted in multiple places and having been proven utterly ineffective, they just keep going back for more, never realizing how wrong and inappropriate they are.

Is this a good idea? I don't know. My car has those things. I'd encourage it, but my car also cost a whole lot of money and that's a whole lot of stuff to fix if it breaks. So I don't know. It's certainly something that should be debated and not dictated because to me it's pretty close to crossing that reasonable line.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, who can disagree with your point, and especially, with your example. However, addressing known-bad drivers is just one way to save lives.

Crash imminent braking is a very good idea - with one caveat: brake lights are not enough. If 'Crash imminent braking' is triggered, the car _must_ automatically sound some sort of warning hoots with its horn.

Otherwise, instead of rear-ending someone, the car gets rear-ended by other, non-sensor-equipped, cars behind.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Mr. Freeman]

To play devil's advocate here, let's look at your claims.

Bus: Doesn't exist many places. If it does, there may not be a bus stop within walking distance of your house, place of work, or a food store.
Taxi: Too expensive. Try taking the taxi to work every day and you'll go fucking broke in a month.
Train: (I think you mean subway). There are two places in the USA that even have those. One is Washington DC, the other is New York. The rest of the country has less subway rail *combined* than either one of those towns alone.
Plane: We're talking about commuting here. And good luck getting on a plane nowadays as an adult without a license.
Walk: Too far. We just covered this.
Bike: See above. Also, see lack of bike lanes and winter months where snow precludes bike riding.
Uber: Illegal and uninsured service. This is a non-starter.
Ride from a friend: You have friends willing to chauffeur you all over the place? Yeah, neither does anyone else.
Moped: Requires a license, genius.

Re:I have an even better idea

[antdude]

What about the illegal immigrants getting their driver licenses?

Re:I have an even better idea

[thegarbz]

Which doesn't change their right to travel. They can walk. Not having access to a form of transportation is not the same thing as the government inhibiting your right to travel. The right to travel is basically saying the government doesn't have a right to lock you into one position not allowing you to move by any means you have available to you.

Take note of that last bit. It doesn't not give you the right to all means of transportation. Actually you don't have the right to transportation at all. You have the right to travel. Maybe that means on a personal jet, maybe that means being pushed in a wheel chair. In both cases you are not inhibited of travelling.

Re:I have an even better idea

[thegarbz]

your argument basically boils down to "it is not a problem for me, so fuck you" and that is not a compelling argument in any situation, so perhaps you might want to consider rolling it up into a small cylinder and taking it rectally.

No my argument is that we are not given the rights to specific methods, only that we are not inhibited in our goals. Speaking of small cylinders do me a favour and procure a surface to air missile. Park it in your front yard and then say something about "right to bare arms" when the FBI is holding you to the ground. Or go out and publicly release information on the NSA and see how far "free speech" gets you.

Your rights are very basic and do not extrapolate into every possible scenario. You don't have a right to operate a motor vehicle any more than you have the right to land a 787 in the street.

all but destroyed the public transportation system to the extent that being forced to use it is little more than a punishment for being poor, the result is deprivation of the right to travel.

No it's not. Unless you attempt to move from a to b and the government holds you up using every possible path and tells you to go back to a you most definitely do have a right to travel. Call me again when the government builds a wall around your city and places armed guards at all exists demanding to see papers. THAT is removing your right to travel. If the only road on and off an island is a toll road that isn't inhibiting your right to travel either. If that road has armed guards which doesn't let members of the public use it, it also isn't inhibiting your rights. Now if they do the above and then gun you down if you use a boat, plane, swim, whatever else to leave then you can talk to me about your legal rights.

If you can't drive, catch a cab, if you can't catch a cab, walk, if you can't walk use a wheel chair, or ride a donkey. All of those are forms of travel. Feel free to choose any method you wish.

Funny you mention poor. I mentioned privilege. Fast and efficient travel is a privilege and not a right unless you can point me to somewhere in the law that covers KPIs on what is considered travel.

And yes I agree that public transport sucks. I disagree that my right to travel is affected.

Re:I have an even better idea

[pjbgravely]

I always listen the radio, it is a great way to hear about dangerous storms are closed roads.

I do observe that is a song I like comes on followed by some tricky driving I will find I missed the song completely while I concentrated on driving.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Italy has those too, but they're mostly driven by 14 year olds. Yes, 14 year olds with a passenger, driving on public roads.

Re:I have an even better idea

[ultranova]

Children, people banned for the more serious traffic offences, the blind and poor sighted, and older people who fail the driving re-test they must take periodically. How they get around is their own problem.

How children get around is usually their parent's problem, actually. And it quickly becomes my problem if the group who cannot drive becomes large, since that means they cannot get to work. Guess who's going to pay for either their upkeep or the security force needed to keep them from rioting?

I understand it's fashionable to display a near-sociopathic lack of empathy nowadays, but it can very quickly cross over into sheer stupidity, and usually does.

One solution is not to live somewhere they can only reach by driving a car. I live in a remote area and I accept that one day, when I get old, I might have to move into a city.

Choosing where you live requires resources, which requires income, which in practice requires being able to drive or hire someone who can. Which gets us back to large amounts of people being prevented from driving very quickly becoming my problem.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There's always a cab. You can work out ride-shares with coworkers. People complaining about driving being a necessity are completely overlooking the point that the ability to move between two points faster than with just your feet is only a *comfort*.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Cederic]

"Driving is a privilege" is not an excuse to penalise people unfairly for non-driving related matters such as child support.

The importance of driving for an inclusive social life and employment is not an excuse for dangerous driving.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Cederic]

Plane: We're talking about commuting here. And good luck getting on a plane nowadays as an adult without a license.

I've never used my driving license as ID for boarding an aircraft. Other forms of identification are available. Do you really think that people that don't drive also never fly??

Trains can take you between towns, not just across them.
Snow does not preclude bike riding.

Other than for commuting, taxis are cost-competitive to car ownership in the UK. They're frequently less convenient, but not more expensive, especially if you live in an urban location that lets you use public transport for a proportion of your journeys.

I appreciate you're playing devil's advocate but the barriers to not owning a car aren't insurmountable, even in the US. As someone else in the thread suggests, learn to drive safely or move to New York.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Cederic]

More relevantly, it's not a felony to not drive without a licence. Sadly this seems to be an option many people are ignoring.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Cederic]

So your answer is what? Destroy the quality of life for people in San Francisco?

I'd fucking love the US urban sprawl here in the UK. It would mean we had the masses of land available to spawl over.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Cederic]

People still steal car radios? Even the stock manufacturer fitted ones? Crikey.

I find I sometimes want music or the radio for distraction. If I get bored while driving I'm more likely to take unnecessary risks. If I'm enjoying my drive I'm more sedate.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's just enforce existing laws and get dangerous drivers off the road. THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE. If you are a dangerous driver you can and should be taken off the road.

A coworker of mine was hit a couple of weeks ago by a woman who, after fleeing the scene, was discovered to have had caused FOUR injury accidents in the trailing 12 months, had been dropped from her insurance two months prior, and who, despite all of that, had not had her license suspended, and was not even ticketed for leaving the scene of the accident she caused with my coworker.

It's our complete unwillingness to hold people accountable for their actions that has created the need for EVAN M0AR government regulation to "protect us from ourselves."

People who are incapable of driving shouldn't be driving. Period.

Someone preaching common sense, this NEVER works.

Let me guess, this was in California? The woman was probably an illegal. My brother was hit-and-run in California and as soon as the cops located the guy and found out he was here illegally, the case against him just "went away".

Another possibility is the woman was rich, the rich never have to deal with the consequences of their actions. This is based on another anecdotal story. I was once on a jury for a DWI case, the lawyers went into the judges chambers and when they came out all charges against the guy were dismissed. The reason? (Judge speaking) "We have decided not to prosecute this case as it might inconveniently hamper Mr. X's plans to graduate from college next week." The guy was obviously very well connected, his attorney was in a fancy name-brand outfit and the assistant DA prosecuting the case was in a Sears suit.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

One town I lived in I asked the cop why he didn't want my license and insurance information, he told me as long as I was going to work he didn't want to know.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a right to freedom of movement, though.

Completely bogus argument. From Wikipedia: "... a citizen of a state in which that citizen is present has the liberty to travel, reside in, and/or work in any part of the state where one pleases within the limits of respect for the liberty and rights of others." What about the freedom of movement of the person who's car they just wrecked? Or had a loved one killed? Don't they have rights too?

What are you going to do about this?

Tell these people "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." They will still have freedom of movement. They can hire a chauffeur, walk, ride a bicycle, hitch a ride with a friend, take public transportation, move closer to town, etc. It's not like they got put in prison where they belong, hit-and-run IS a crime you know (in some states a fairly serious felony).

Re:I have an even better idea

[stoatwblr]

First: drive the car
Second: use the radio

The fact that you let yourself get distracted by the radio shows you aren't safe. Just because you hadn't crashed up to that point doesn't mean you were a safe driver.

Re:I have an even better idea

[stoatwblr]

"If I suddenly find myself stomping on a pedal that does nothing because it has no mechanical linkage to the master cylinder, then that's a non-starter."

Are you doing to argue against hydraulic systems because that can happen too?

(I've been there and done that. As long as the way is clear there are safe ways of stopping the car, but people tend to panic.)

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

To play devil's advocate here, let's look at your claims.

You do a very poor job of playing devil's advocate here. All you've done is list the sometimes-inconvenient circumstances people find themselves in.

Your RIGHT to move freely is not equivalent to your ABILITY to move freely, unless you want to start mounting a letter-writing campaign against disabilities, infancy, agoraphobia, and old age. The government / society is not obligated to provide you with "easy and convenient means" to move around quickly and freely. You are conflating the "right to move freely" with "the right to move quickly in any manner I wish," and frankly, nobody's got pockets deep enough to pay for that right.

But, just for giggles, point by point:

Bus: Doesn't exist many places. If it does, there may not be a bus stop within walking distance of your house, place of work, or a food store.

Then you should take a bus, and combine it with one of the other methods of locomotion, such as a taxi. Done it before, it's surprisingly easy - take a bus to "near" your stop, then a taxi the last 10-20 blocks if you're in a real rush.

Taxi: Too expensive. Try taking the taxi to work every day and you'll go fucking broke in a month.

Try owning and parking a car anywhere there's taxi service - bet you go broke faster that way.

Train: (I think you mean subway). There are two places in the USA that even have those. One is Washington DC, the other is New York. The rest of the country has less subway rail *combined* than either one of those towns alone.

Trains regularly cover long distance - see Amtrak. As far as light rail and subway - you should really travel more. It's amazing what you'd find if you weren't so near-sighted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Plane: We're talking about commuting here. And good luck getting on a plane nowadays as an adult without a license.

I know people who commute by plane. You can board a plane with a government-issued ID that does not also grant you the ability to operate a motor vehicle. You should really learn how airport security works. And a charter doesn't require a license, so... yeah, no luck needed.

Walk: Too far. We just covered this.

Too far is an arbitrary statement. WHAT is too far? WHY is it too far? Are you being prevented from walking somewhere? Or are you simply too lazy? The fact that it takes a "long time" to walk 10 miles doesn't mean your ability to walk around freely has been restricted.

Bike: See above. Also, see lack of bike lanes and winter months where snow precludes bike riding.

Ah, so SNOW is illegally restricting your ability to travel freely - better get right on that, champ! I'm sure the global climate will respond quickly to your letter writing campaign.

Uber: Illegal and uninsured service. This is a non-starter.

Really? Why is it illegal and uninsured? It operates quite legally in numerous places. Perhaps you could explain to us the new federal law that we seem to be missing that's imposed sweeping restrictions on Uber?

Ride from a friend: You have friends willing to chauffeur you all over the place? Yeah, neither does anyone else.

Actually, yes, I do have friends who are willing to give me a ride places - perhaps because I'm not an insufferable cockstain who thinks the world owes him something. I ask politely, and usually my friends are more than happy to drop me off somewhere, especially if it's on their way somewhere they're already going. In return, I do the same for them when they ask.

Moped: Requires a license, gen

Re:I have an even better idea

[Agripa]

In all of the places I have lived, scooters and motorbikes still require licenses.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Agripa]

It's not a felony to drive without a licence, FFS.

It depends on the State and circumstances and even if not charged as a felony, that can still mean large fines and up to a year in prison.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Mr. Freeman]

>Snow does not preclude bike riding.

Looks like we found the hippie.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Immerman]

A vehicle with two or three wheels, fully functional pedals, no more than a 1hp (750W) motor, and a top speed of 20mph for a 170lb rider is legally classified as a bicycle in the US, and doesn't require a motor vehicle license. That's an incredibly versatile vehicle right there. 1hp on a normal bicycle is scary powerful - horsepower is literally named, and you and a bike are far lighter than the horse would be.

Re:I have an even better idea

[viperidaenz]

What about the other parts of the bear?

Do you have a right to bear legs?

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And good luck getting on a plane nowadays as an adult without a license

I have been asked many things before boarding an aeroplane, but a driving licence is not one of them. Why would they require such a thing?

Re:I have an even better idea

[Agripa]

This varies from state to state and many or most states definitely require licensing of the driver for scooters and mopeds and such.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I adopted this without losing my ride.

Riding your bike to work is cheap as hell and makes you more fit. Easily 50% of the US workforce could ride to work, but don't because it's not a social norm. (Seriously. If you're not crippled, have a job that requires you to drive, or don't live too far away you have zero excuse other than social pressure)

Re:I have an even better idea

[Immerman]

Well, and the fact that the infrastructure in most American cities are decidedly bicycle-unfriendly, making bicycle accidents much more common as well as far more damaging than auto accidents.

I'm all for bicylces, but pretending that social pressure is the only reason they don't see more use is disingenuous.

Re:I have an even better idea

[david_thornley]

It doesn't increase the cost of driving. It will have massive economic impacts, though, since many people depend on driving to get to their workplace and back, and there frequently aren't feasible alternatives.

In most Western European cities, there are decent public transportation systems, so you can get by without a car if you have to. US metropolitan areas were pretty much designed on the assumption that anybody who wanted to go anywhere would drive.

Re:I have an even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

THERE IS NO RIGHT TO DRIVE.

A false statement under US law. The Right to Drive arises under the 9th Amendment, as part of the right to travel, one of the rights recognized by federal courts as being subject to "strict scrutiny".

Like any right, this right has limits. Keeping children, the insane and incompetent off the road falls under those limits.

In short, your assumptions were incorrect, but the conclusion has merit (if we ignore the propaganda aspects of what you said).

Re:I have an even better idea

[tibit]

i've driven more hours than most olympians have trained

If you are not a professional full-time driver then no, you have not. And if you are a professional driver, then still you have not been scored on your driving.

Re:I have an even better idea

[CanHasDIY]

You don't have a right to be able to afford anything.

I never said that. You didn't really miss my entire point because I said "cabs are more expensive than owning a car," did you?

Go read the post I responded to, then read mine again.

Re:I have an even better idea

[CanHasDIY]

The right to travel is basically saying the government doesn't have a right to lock you into one position not allowing you to move by any means you have available to you.

Citation needed.

Also, if right to travel doesn't pertain to means of transportation, what if the government said private jets were now the only vehicle you could legally travel in? Wouldn't that prohibit our right to travel freely? Or are you going to pretend a person could walk from LA to NY in any amount of time considered reasonable in the 21st Century?

Re:I have an even better idea

[thegarbz]

Citation needed.

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Read it.

The right to travel does not give you express rights to get wherever you want but any means you want. It gives you express rights not to be locked in one place. Of note is that this declaration was written before commercial air travel became anything remotely possible for average people. So are you going to pretend that at the time people weren't willing to spend months on end getting somewhere by boat?

So my answer is no, if the USA banned ALL airplanes then your right to travel still hasn't been prohibited.

The "what?!" is reaction time

[Anonymous Coward]

It helps to fumble with your phone while driving, changing the stations and not paying attention in general.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[BarbaraHudson]

Don't text and drive - texters have worse reaction times than drunks!

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[postbigbang]

I drive about 150mi per week on highways, not freeways, and watch as dozens and dozens of people text. They're easy to spot.

Were we to apply the emphasis towards keeping your eyes on the road, rather than improving brakes-- which were probably ok as they DON'T DO FORENSICS on such accidents, better money would be spent.

How do you get people to stop fooling with their devices? Enable motion detection, which keeps the cam on in the phone. Might not work for many, but I'd like to see texting and driving fined in the same way as DUIs. Same problem: irresponsibility.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet accident rates haven't changed much in the past 20 years - *bad drivers* are the cause, what they happen to be doing at the time of the accident is just a distraction from the real problem.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[craigminah]

Yes. Stop making a law for every possible way you can not focus on driving (e.g. law against texting and driving, law against talking on phone and driving, etc.). Just make driving erratic a crime commensurate with a DUI and be done with it.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[postbigbang]

Erratic isn't a useful measure. Voluntarily removing your focus from driving, e.g. taking a call, removing your eyes from the road for more than a second every 20sec, there'll be something that could be a viable measure that puts people's eyes back on the road, and not the latest tweet or instagram pic.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Anonymous Coward]

It helps to fumble with your phone while driving, changing the stations and not paying attention in general.

Yeah, as soon as I read the last line:

As the NHSTA tells it, a third of 2013's police-reported car accidents were the rear-end crashes and a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!) or fully before impact.

... my first thought was "yup, they were too busy texting, or yapping on the phone, or putting their makeup on, or distracted by their screaming kids in the back, or otherwise not paying any f**king attention to the road and the 2500lb+ hunk of metal they're supposed to be controlling".

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[kanweg]

Can find the data for death only
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

They have dropped by about a third.

Bert

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[OzPeter]

I drive about 150mi per week on highways, not freeways, and watch as dozens and dozens of people text. They're easy to spot.

2 weeks ago I followed a local cop for several miles and counted 7 times that he made lane changes and merged onto and off the freeway without using his indicators. He was also slowly weaving from side to side to just outside the left and right sides of his lane. All classic symptoms of distracted driving. This cop suffered no penalty, yet I bet if the cop was following me and I exhibited the same behavior then I would have been pulled over (assuming of course that the cop would actually have been paying attention)

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[postbigbang]

Statistically, cops have far fewer accidents that they caused. Should they be cited? Sure. Will they? Never, as the fraternity of enforcers exempts themselves, and given human behavior, you're not going to easily change that, even with cop-cams. I understand your fears, I doubt that you'll be able to change the behavior of public safety officers. Good luck.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter how you try to massage the numbers it's hard to show any correlation between the rise of mobiles and increased accident rates - even looking at raw number of accidents things are flat despite a larger number of cars and larger miles-driven rate. I don't care if you were texting or fiddling with the radio when you rammed into a truck, stop writing stupid laws and just enforce reckless driving (or reward wreckless driving, see what I did there?).

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[zieroh]

Yes. Stop making a law for every possible way you can not focus on driving (e.g. law against texting and driving, law against talking on phone and driving, etc.). Just make driving erratic a crime commensurate with a DUI and be done with it.

I've heard this complaint more times than I can count, especially from the slashdot crowd. I used to agree with the sentiment, even. After all, why have 17 laws when you can have one that abstractly covers all the cases?

I'll tell you why: Because legal code is not computer code, and code size is not one of the factors being optimized. The seventeen laws aren't there for the sake of efficiency. The seventeen laws are there to remind people in very explicit terms (rather than abstract ones) that the thing they are doing is against the law. Texting on your cell phone is the same as distracted driving, sure. But by enumerating it explicitly, the redundant-but-specific law drives home the point that [i]this specific thing is against the law[/i]. It also generally results in news announcements reminding motorists that the new law goes into effect next month, which further drives home the point and reduces accidents.

And that's the point of these laws. To reduce accidents. Just because it is contrary to efficient coding practices does not mean that it is without merit.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[BarbaraHudson]

And most of that is due to cars being made so that crashes are more surviveable and trauma centers are more capable. You look at some of the accidents where they have to use the jaws of life to get the person out, and you think "no way will they survive" - some end up with just a few minor scratches, others with what would have been fatal injuries just a decade ago.

How about this one of a driver driving off an overpass? Or this one?.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Anonymous Coward]

... my first thought was "yup, they were too busy texting, or yapping on the phone, or putting their makeup on, or distracted by their screaming kids in the back, or otherwise not paying any f**king attention to the road and the 2500lb+ hunk of metal they're supposed to be controlling".

Tsk. How am I supposed to get any sleep if I'm texting, yapping, or putting on makeup??

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[ceoyoyo]

Crashes have been getting much more survivable, but the number of collisions per car-kilometre has also been flat or dropping. Texting in North America took off in a fairly short period of time. If it were actually responsible for as many crashes as it gets blamed for there would have been a big spike in the collision rate. There wasn't. That supports the idea that the ultimate cause is bad drivers, and texting is just the latest thing they can be distracted by. Texting while driving is undoubtedly dangerous, but so are a lot of other things people do in cars.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[PPH]

Statistically, cops have far fewer accidents that they caused.

Who collects the data points for the statistics?

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, put another way, the claim isn't that texting while driving isn't dangerous but that a 100% successful ban of texting while driving (even if such a thing were possible) will not change the accident rate one iota. People who are distractable while driving will simply find another distraction.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[HornWumpus]

Helps that they get to decide who caused the accident.

Cops are a good reason to install a dash cam.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[postbigbang]

Insurance companies, nationwide. In terms of accident-free miles, only truck drivers are better.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[PPH]

Insurance companies

Insurance companies don't show up at accident scenes. Cops do and they fill out the reports that insurance companies compile into statistics.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget that if you are in an accident that involves an emergency vehicle, YOU are at fault. Police cars do fall under the "emergency vehicle" umbrella.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Immerman]

So how about one law against reckless driving, augmented by a non-binding, non-comprehensive list of example behaviors that will get you busted.
Intoxication, texting, talking on the phone, leaning into the back seat to get your baby's toy off the floor, etc.

No, steering with your feet while juggling angry cats blindfolded is not explicitly on the list - but a reasonable person can look at the list and say it probably qualifies, so let a jury decide on the particulars. That's their job after all - not just to decide on the facts, but to make sure the law is being applied justly.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Ichijo]

texters have worse reaction times than drunks!

Reaction time isn't a problem if you drive at a speed and keep a following distance appropriate for your reaction time. This is why elderly people drive slowly.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[ColdWetDog]

And don't forget that if you are in an accident that involves an emergency vehicle, YOU are at fault. Police cars do fall under the "emergency vehicle" umbrella.

No, at least in the US a driver of an emergency vehicle has more of an onus on them to avoid accidents. They are the professional and you are the idiot. There have been numerous cases of emergency vehicle drives cited / sued for their behavior. Which is why you are finding that more and more emergency vehicles are driving fairly sedately - we've found that screaming around corners in large, lumbering vehicles to save 0.7 seconds on a call doesn't add up to anything but increased insurance costs. Slow down and you get there faster. It's something we're really stressing with the volunteer fire department drivers. We have even pulled the little blue lights that the volunteers had. It's safer if they just drive normally and get there a couple of seconds later.

An emergency vehicle running with lights and sirens has the right-of-way but that does not give them carte blanche.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[maxwells_deamon]

So I am stuck on the freeway in the center of 8 cars. We have not moved in so long that people are getting out of the cars to see if they can see what the problem is. But if I put my car in park and then send a text message to say I will be late I should have a fine of hundreds of dollars and get my license yanked?

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[mrchaotica]

It also means that, instead of just being charged with "distracted driving," the perp can be charged with "texting while driving" and "driving erratically" and "distracted driving," which adds up to triple penalty (including jail time!) unless he gives up his right to trial and allows himself to be railroaded into a "plea deal."

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[BarbaraHudson]

texters have worse reaction times than drunks!

Reaction time isn't a problem if you drive at a speed and keep a following distance appropriate for your reaction time. This is why elderly people drive slowly.

Drunks are still (at least sometimes) looking at the road. Texters, not so much. When you're not looking at the road, doesn't matter what your reaction time is, because you just won't see the accident about to happen.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[Cederic]

No, steering with your feet while juggling angry cats blindfolded is not explicitly on the list

I can confirm through painful first-hand experience that the word 'angry' is entirely superfluous in that context.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[stoatwblr]

As does anyone with a cold or flu - statistically they're 4 times more likely to crash than someone at the blood alcohol limit.

Re:The "what?!" is reaction time

[david_thornley]

One problem is that "reckless driving" is hard to define. Either it's going to be too vague to be enforceable, or it's going to be useless in many cases.

If you base it on how the vehicle is being driven, you wind up tolerating a lot of stuff that the driver is getting away with this time. (This is a good use of a reckless driving law.) If you base it on observation of the driver, it's going to be biased and uncertain.

Moreover, there's a legal principle that a person should theoretically be able to know whether a given action is legal or illegal. Driving while doing something that might cause careless driving is not going to stand up to court challenges.

Not a fan

[rmdingler]

If the safety feature enables the brakes when a crash is 'imminent', it takes away the driver's discretion during the times braking is not advisable.

During icy conditions, when I'd rather kill that deer instead of my family, or when a piece of black plastic blows across the roadway, are three that come to mind.

Re:Not a fan

[ShanghaiBill]

it takes away the driver's discretion during the times braking is not advisable.

Real life involves tradeoffs. For almost any safety feature, there will be some corner cases where it is detrimental, but it is still a big win overall. Even airbags kill people occasionally, and about an extra dozen infants die every year in hot cars because their car seats are in the back instead of the front. But airbags save thousands of lives overall, so the cost is worth it.

Re:Not a fan

[Bob9113]

Real world example: My car has traction control. It also is relatively light, has front wheel drive, and has an anti-roll bar on the rear suspension.

So here's what happens; when I go into a long left hander (like a freeway interchange), the weight transfers to the right and the body rolls. The outside (right) rear wheel suspension compresses, and the anti-roll bar lifts the left rear wheel off the ground. It is a stable driving configuration, they just overbuilt the anti-roll bar for the vehicle weight. The inside rear wheel would be unweighted and providing negligible traction even if it were touching the ground, so it is not a risk.

But here's what happens next: The inside wheel is not being driven, nor is it touching the ground. Air friction slows the wheel, and the traction control system kicks in. It sees that I have three wheels going 60 MPH and one wheel going 20 MPH, and assumes that I am in an aggressive spin. It brakes the three fast wheels; aggressively. And the vehicles bucks like a horse that just saw a rattlesnake. That does cause a very real risk of losing control.

Sensor-based driving assist is a fine option. It's great for people who want the freedom to text while driving, because it keeps them from killing me. Making it the norm may reduce accidents overall, and we may reach a day when it is superior to any human. But we have not yet reached the point where economy-priced driving assist is less dangerous than an attentive and skilled driver.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine have applied twice, neither time was good. First when I was pulling into a parking spot that had a tree limb low over the hood that tricked the sensor. The second is when I leave work, the ramp takes me straight toward a lamp post and then a sharp right. The sensor sees the lamp post coming up fast and slams on the brakes at which point the others behind me start calling me names!

Re:Not a fan

[OzPeter]

If the safety feature enables the brakes when a crash is 'imminent', it takes away the driver's discretion during the times braking is not advisable.

And if you look at the stats, about 1/3 of crashes are rear end accidents, and within that group a significant number of drivers didn't even attempt to apply the brakes. That last part was even in TFS!

You can't take away something that doesn't exist.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Real world example: My car has traction control. It also is relatively light, has front wheel drive, and has an anti-roll bar on the rear suspension.

So here's what happens; when I go into a long left hander (like a freeway interchange), the weight transfers to the right and the body rolls. The outside (right) rear wheel suspension compresses, and the anti-roll bar lifts the left rear wheel off the ground. It is a stable driving configuration, they just overbuilt the anti-roll bar for the vehicle weight. The inside rear wheel would be unweighted and providing negligible traction even if it were touching the ground, so it is not a risk.

But here's what happens next: The inside wheel is not being driven, nor is it touching the ground. Air friction slows the wheel, and the traction control system kicks in. It sees that I have three wheels going 60 MPH and one wheel going 20 MPH, and assumes that I am in an aggressive spin. It brakes the three fast wheels; aggressively. And the vehicles bucks like a horse that just saw a rattlesnake. That does cause a very real risk of losing control.

Sensor-based driving assist is a fine option. It's great for people who want the freedom to text while driving, because it keeps them from killing me. Making it the norm may reduce accidents overall, and we may reach a day when it is superior to any human. But we have not yet reached the point where economy-priced driving assist is less dangerous than an attentive and skilled driver.

This and things like my traction control (that freaks out when there is slush on the ground and needs to be turned off so that I'm not stalled in an intersection) and pre-emptive braking systems that are so paranoid that people now complain that they cannot get into a parking garage because the gate is triggering the braking system before they can get close enough to swipe their card or hit the ticket button are why I laugh whenever someone claims that we'll have self-driving cars by 2020 or some other unrealistic date.

Re:Not a fan

[jeffb (2.718)]

Yes, yes, I'm sure you can imagine any number of situations where your lightning reflexes, superb judgement, and superhuman driving skill will produce a better outcome than some dumb automated system.

But even if you are much more skilled than the average driver -- and it does seem like 80-90% of drivers are quite convinced that they're "better than average" -- you're still likely to do dumb things behind the wheel more frequently than you do brilliant things behind the wheel. If you have a human brain, you're kind of stuck with that. There are a million things that can distract you, impair you, or confuse you, and any one of them will knock you down from that pinnacle of performance.

There will certainly be times when an automated system produces a worse outcome than a skilled human driver. But those times will be overwhelmingly outnumbered by the times when it's the other way around. It's really, really hard to reason objectively about risks like this, especially when there's a perceived loss of control involved. But if you don't let objective reasoning drive policy, you're going to end up with more dead and injured people.

When I was a kid, the debate was over seat-belt laws. There were an amazing number of people who absolutely refused to wear them. "I remember this person who was trapped in a burning (or sinking) car because they couldn't get out of the seat belt!" "I'm too good a driver to get into an accident where I'd need a seat belt to save me!" "If I'm wearing a seat belt, I can't be thrown to safety, so I'll be trapped in the collision!" Yes, I'm quite sure that some people have died because of seat belts. But that number is absolutely dwarfed by the number of people saved by them. It's cold consolation to the handful of seat-belt victims, I know, but you're still an utter fool if you let those few tragedies convince you not to use the belt.

Please don't let fear of a few extremely unlikely scenarios block a robust solution for an entire class of common problems.

Re:Not a fan

[rmdingler]

Can we be certain that each and every idiot-proofing safety advancement is actually good for the herd?

It seems like inattentive drivers are already breeding at an alarming rate.

Re:Not a fan

[david_bonn]

If the safety feature enables the brakes when a crash is 'imminent', it takes away the driver's discretion during the times braking is not advisable.

During icy conditions, when I'd rather kill that deer instead of my family, or when a piece of black plastic blows across the roadway, are three that come to mind.

I have lived in 15 years in an area with a lot of deer, some elk, and some moose. Usually there are about 200 deer kills per years in the county. And there are notoriously icy and snowy roads in the wintertime.

About five years ago I hit a deer going about 45mph just outside of town. The deer came from the passenger side, hit the right front corner panel, and bounced up and left a basketball-sized hole with the deer head sticking through right in front of my face. The county sheriff said (and I agree) that if I would have been going 5mph faster I would have been killed. So I am all for such features.

And oh, if you are worried about icy roads your hi-tech car will almost certainly have anti-lock brakes and should have skid control (since that is just a software feature of your anti-lock brakes). So your fears about spinning out of control aren't very likely.

Re:Not a fan

[Entrope]

Is the tradeoff in favor of this kind of system yet? I have it one my car, and the part that I have found useful is the flashing warning -- not the braking. Among other flaws, it tends to have false alarms on certain stretches of road (I'm not sure whether it is picking up signs or fences or something else, but it is almost a given at one spot on my commute home from work), and it gets close to the auto-braking threshold when a car in front of me is turning into a parking lot. (The system in my car has three levels: flashing a warning, pre-tensioning [tugging] seat belts, and automatically braking. A turning car sometimes triggers the pre-tensioning, which is distracting in itself.)

Re:Not a fan

[CrimsonAvenger]

It seems like inattentive drivers are already breeding at an alarming rate.

Interesting you should say that, since the number of automobile accidents of all kinds has been declining steadily for the last 30 years, at least.

As has the number of fatal accidents.

And all this while the number of vehicles on the road has been increasing.

Re:Not a fan

[thegarbz]

Yep because a car will have advanced computers to be able to intelligently apply breaks but won't be sold with traction control, abs, and the many other things that cars already have that effectively prevent you locking up tyres.

A modern car with all its safety bells and whistles basically will in no way be worse off if you plant your foot as hard as you can on the break as if you don't. It will still steer as good or better, and it will definitely stop as good or better than any other situation.

Plus you're assuming that hitting said animal is a safe course of action. As someone who has seen someone cop a hoof to the face (not fatal thankfully) after the animal ended up going in through the windscreen I can tell you either way you're going to have a bad day.

Re:Not a fan

[zieroh]

Real world example: My car has traction control. It also is relatively light, has front wheel drive, and has an anti-roll bar on the rear suspension.

So here's what happens

You seem to be arguing that automated driving aids tend to interfere with real-world situations, while describing a real-world situation that is actually a glaring example of a horrible design defect with your car. You should have four wheels on the ground in all "real world" situations, end-of.

Your car is broken. And that's a piss-poor reason to be against automated driving aids.

Re: Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Good grief. Pretensioning? WtF.
Would. Not. Wear. My. Seatbelt. if such shit were required.
Back in the pager-wearing days I was about to sit down at the beginning of a large meeting and nearly shit myself as I unleashed the contents of my opened briefcase on everyone when my pager vibrated on my side.

Re:Not a fan

[X0563511]

Sounds like your suspension is broken or you're idea of a safe speed on such a long left-hander is not in line with reality.

Re:Not a fan

[Mr D from 63]

Not arguing your point, but it would be just as interesting to see the stats on accidents avoided. In many situations, swerving with controlled braking is more effective than braking alone or 'panic braking'. I'd hate to lose that ability to have that braking control. But I do understand the point of the proposed requirement is those that have no clue what is happening in front of them.

Re:Not a fan

[ceoyoyo]

I'm pretty sure pre-emptive braking systems are designed to use the ABS system, not lock the brakes. So go ahead and swerve with controlled braking.

Re:Not a fan

[Waffle Iron]

Your car is trying to tell you that you're about to roll it.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

The braking system would be able to detect the icy conditions and adapt in milliseconds, and the imminent crash detection will most likely use radar and/or other sensors that could out-perform the human eye in many conditions.

This reminds me of my grandma who insisted that she was safer without a seat belt, all because she was thrown clear of her car and survived a violent crash in the 1960s. You really don't want to plan your risk mitigation strategy by anecdote, when there are much better statistics available.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

bob,
you missed the fact that you would have to have pressed the brake
somewhere along the curve, and you didn't indicate when.
therefore your argument is impossible to defend, traction control
does not work that fast or that unreliable, buy something decent.

Re:Not a fan

[bws111]

Which do you think is more likely to occur - injury to your family from incorrect braking by an automated system in strange outlier conditions, or injury to your family from incorrect braking when some texting jackass doesn't notice that traffic has slowed or stopped? Your logic is similar to people who argue against seat belt use because in some possible but very unlikely situations it could cause a problem, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the time it helps.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have four wheels on the ground in all "real world" situations, end-of.

That's BS. Many cars have an inside rear wheel that will lift during normal turns. My VW Scirocco would. VW even had a magazine ad that showed the wheel off of the ground. My wife had a VW Rabbit, one of the most popular cars ever made, that would also lift the inside wheel. Here's a page with a picture of a GTI showing it:

http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1702613

My current car is a Mazda 2. You have to drive it pretty hard, but it will lift the inside wheel during a hard turn. It's easy to get the ABS warning light to turn on if it's a long curve like an Interstate entrance. You can do it when accelerating, but it's even easier to do when braking. Lifting a wheel is normal on many different cars.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not "end-of". FWD VWs were famously set up to lift a rear wheel in hard corners. RWD Alfas lifted a front wheel. Those weren't "horrible design defects." You don't know the subject.

And the whole point of stability/traction control systems is to help out in extreme circumstances.

Some stability control systems are worse than nothing. TC on '90s Toyotas would really unsettle the car in the rain. GM's "active handling" is pretty good, but loose connectors can make it lose its mind and throw the car into a ditch. It doesn't have sufficient immunity from bad inputs.

It is not acceptable to dismiss these problems as examples of "broken" cars. Cars break. Cars aren't maintained like airliners. They need to fail SAFE.

Re:Not a fan

[Ichijo]

Yet the number of pedestrian fatalities has been rising. Could it be that drivers haven't become more adept, only that we're getting better at making cars safer for their occupants and the roads safer for (and only for) cars?

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you haven't got a clue about collisions with any animals heavier than human beings. It's usually worse than hitting another car because a car doesn't come in through your windshield when you hit it so with seatbelts on and airbags, you have a chance. Having a deer hit you in the head is bad enough to make the pieces of glass that come with be a pretty minor issue.

Re: Not a fan

[HornWumpus]

Switch to decaf.

Re:Not a fan

[HornWumpus]

Traction control on a non driven wheel? Maybe stability control.

You should only lift your inside rear wheel under very hard braking and cornering. Not a highway interchange at steady speed. There is nothing transferring weight forward.

I'm going to have to call bullshit.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Your car is broken. And that's a piss-poor reason to be against automated driving aids.

You have no clue about what you're talking about. Millions of cars have been sold that are designed to lift a wheel off of the ground while turning. My Honda S2000 will often hit the rev limiter when turning and accelerating hard because it has an open differential and Honda designed it to lift the inside rear wheel. If you disconnect the rear anti-roll bar, you can make the front inside rear wheel lift instead. I race SCCA, and you sometimes see some people do that because it gives you more traction than Honda's typical one rear wheel in contact configuration.

Re:Not a fan

[del_diablo]

Why are not specifying year of said models? Sciorro is either ancient, or 2008.
Rabbit is a long lasting series. 1990 != 2000 != 2001, especially in how the features work. All depending on when the parts evolved.
And again: Mazda 2 is not a year model.
We can not google each cars safety feature evolution, drive system, and then start arguing for each span of those.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

If the turning car slammed on the breaks, could you still comfortably stop when that happens? I've been guilty myself of going faster than necessary for that often enough ... and it has always worked out well, but not always with a comfortable margin.

Re:Not a fan

[CrimsonAvenger]

Note I used the word "accidents" as well as "fatalities". The number of "accidents" has been declining.

Increasing numbers of pedestrian fatalities coupled with a decreasing number of accidents makes me think the problem is pedestrians texting, not drivers doing same....

Re:Not a fan

[nmalinoski]

There are notable differences between those technologies, primarily that airbags do not take control away from the driver.
- Passive safety features, like seat belts, airbags, and crumple zones, are intended to reduce or prevent injury during a crash.
- Active features*, like ABS, TCS, VDC, and hill-start assist, can (and generally do) aid the driver in maintaining control of the vehicle.
- Automated systems like automatic braking and automatic parallel parking systems remove control of the vehicle from the driver.

I know I'm making a sweeping generalization here, but if you have to remove control from the driver, then that driver is obviously doing something wrong. Let's run through an example scenario to find the problem...
- People are rear-ending others without bothering to brake? No, that itself is not the problem.
- Why aren't people braking? Well, it could be that they're tailgating and simply didn't have time to brake; but, no, it's because those drivers have task-switched to looking at their phones or are fumbling with the car's touch screen interface--and, yes, some people are trying to also keep an eye on their kid(s) in the back seat--while their vehicle is in motion. A lot of people would stop here, but, no, that isn't the problem either.
- Why are these people willfully task-switching away from driving to activities that require the majority of their attention**, like texting, troubleshooting an uncooperative device, or trying to adjust anything on a touch screen interface? Seems like poor attitude towards driving. I think we can go a little further.
- Why do these people (Read: Not everyone) think that it's okay to get their multi-ton, rolling hunk of metal and plastic up to speed and then stop paying attention to it?

Okay, I don't really have a good answer for that last question; it could be any of a multitude of factors, from the woefully low requirements for getting a driver's license in the US to lack of experience or training, or even simply stupidity.

My points are 1) that these automated systems that take control of vehicles away from drivers are hacky workarounds; 2) mandating them on all new vehicles would not address the underlying issues; 3) and they would punish those of us who take the effort to focus on the act of driving, actively avoid distractions, and make a point of maintaining control of our vehicles. I have no problem with making these systems available, but I would not want one installed on my vehicle.

* Yes, there are instances where disabling these driver aids is appropriate. TCS needs to be disabled to get unstuck from snow; ABS should probably be disabled for autocross, especially on gravel.
** I'm defining "attention" in this context as any combination of mental concentration, eye sight (Taking your eyes off the road), and use of one or more hands that would remove focus from the act of driving.

Re:Not a fan

[AmiMoJo]

The automatic breaking systems only work at low speed (typically max 30 mph), and are very conservative. Unless you are doing less then about 10 mph they won't even stop you hitting the object, just lessen the impact. They use antilock braking and if the car skids or the driver reacts by turning the wheel, braking or accelerating they instantly disengage.

There are probably a few real edge cases were they might make things slightly worse, but it's hard to imagine a situation where they could cause someone to actually die.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote]Your car is trying to tell you that you're about to roll it.[/quote]
You need to go watch a local SCCA race. Lifting the inside rear wheel is normal. I've seen it thousands of times, and I've never seen a car roll. Several makers, like VW and Mazda, even show their cars doing that in their ads. It is by design. Of course since the DOT requires a ridiculous amount of sensors and broken by design software, bad things happen during this normal event. On my wife's Honda, the ABS light will turn on. If you're braking when it happens, the car wants to try to go straight which is dangerous. It's the fault of the software, not the suspension.

On my Honda since it's rear wheel drive and has a crappy open differential, the inside rear tire gets all of the power and will squeal when Honda's design returns the wheel to the ground. It will also dangerously try to kick(for lack of a better term) the car straight. This isn't a problem with the lift the rear wheel design. It is a problem because Honda is such a piece of shit company. They don't design cars. They're just a screwdriver shop. They buy parts from others then throw them together creating a pile of shit. Of course since my wife's father owns a dealership that sells those horrific things, we have to drive them. My wife is expecting now so I'm working on getting those dangerous pieces of shit out of my life. I don't want my child to die in a Honda like happened to several of my friends growing up. Honda is run by a bunch of pieces of shit that don't care about the safety of their customers.

Re:Not a fan

[Ichijo]

Yet drivers violate the right-of-way of pedestrians more often than the other way around.

Re:Not a fan

[Waffle Iron]

You need to go watch a local SCCA race. Lifting the inside rear wheel is normal.

Normal in a race.

Several makers, like VW and Mazda, even show their cars doing that in their ads.

"Closed course. Professional driver. Do not attempt."

On my Honda [yadda yadda rant rant]

Looks like you need to get a bumper sticker with Calvin pissing on a Honda.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

You should perhaps restrict your comments to a realm where you actually know something, rather than condemning what you feel strongly against, but don't have a clue about the facts involved.

His car is not broken, nor does it have a design defect. I'm not going to go into detail about the physics of weight transfer to you, but the inside rear wheel lifting is acceptable behavior in a light front wheel drive car in a hard turn, and is not dangerous. Most cars of this type, with sufficiently sticky tires, will do this. If the tire were on the ground, the car would not gain any traction whatsoever, as the normal force is zero.

Traction control systems can be dangerous at times. His is a real-world situation where it is dangerous, and the fault lies entirely in how the traction control is handling it, not in the design of the suspension or flaws in the rest of the car.

Re:Not a fan

[drinkypoo]

My Honda S2000 will often hit the rev limiter when turning and accelerating hard because it has an open differential and Honda designed it to lift the inside rear wheel.

Wow, did they really? That's a RWD car, if they designed it to do that, then they designed it poorly. I had a high opinion of the S2000 until I read this.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, standard proper behavior for the type of car. Has been since at least the morris mini minor. most roll resistance should be at the light end of the vehicle. The mistake is not in the suspension but in the tacked on traction control system.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems you're getting a ton of responses from people who spend too much mental time in fantasyland. Here in the real world, I agree 100% that your traction control system is a bad design, and they didn't properly consider _all_ possible operation scenarios. For the idiots who say you're driving beyond safe/sane parameters (which is a different thing) I say this: it is possible that a child could run out, from between parked cars, in front of this car, the driver swerves to miss the child, and the overly-automated traction control causes loss of control and an accident which would not have happened in a non-traction controlled car. I've been driving a long time (over 30 years) and unfortunately have been in some bad situations mostly due to other's bad driving, but I avoided accidents due to driving skill and being able to predict the car's behavior (based on physics). An unpredictable traction control system could cause me to have an accident.

Despite being a hw & sw engineer, I can't stand overly automated crap everywhere. I end up modifying things to give me control. In my car I've put a switch to allow me to disable the A/C compressor, for example. And my car is an older "dangerous clunker" with few automated things. It does have ABS, which kicked in dozens of times last night driving in some really bad new snowfall. When it kicks in, you pretty much lose braking. I've learned to start pumping the brakes, and all is well. I think the ABS is doing what it should be doing, but I question the bigger picture design. IE: when ABS senses a wheel slowing down too much, ABS overreacts and over-controls braking. It is _not_ intuitive to let off the brake pedal when skidding starts! But that's what you have to force yourself to do, and it's quite scary, but it worked for me.

My opinion bottom line: many of these automated things around us are great in theory, but the practical design was rushed to market, at our peril. I feel that the whole world has become conditioned to accept being beta testers for all of this buggy crap (software and hardware), and the govt. and legal system should force longer product warranties. Yes, it would be painful at first, but I would like to live in a world where we put more time, effort, and $ toward curing cancer, flying cars, etc., and less time and effort into cleaning up messes caused by penny-pinching. One bad design released into production can cause millions and billions in damage, destruction, maiming, loss of life, etc.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

I work on automotive safety electronics; mostly brakes, some airbags.

Anti-lock brakes increase stopping distance in order to maintain vehicle control. If you want to stop in as short a distance as possible, by all means lock the wheels and skid, but you'll also be sideways in a ditch or oncoming traffic. With ABS there are a few cases where maybe you hit something you wouldn't have, but by that time you should also be going slow enough it won't be too dangerous. It's a tradeoff that improves safety in the vast majority of cases.

A feature like this will have to be tied in to some kind of vision and/or radar system (similar to adaptive cruise control). Plastic debris probably won't set it off. Also it probably won't go from zero to full slam on the brakes instantly. It'll request a certain amount of deceleration from the braking unit. In icy conditions the braking unit will still do that ABS to help maintain control.

Automated braking at low speeds when a pedestrian or obstacle is detected (e.g. while parking) is already a thing.

I'm actually having a hard time imagining your hypothetical situation where applying the brakes because an obstacle is detected will result in harm to the vehicle occupants. But I mostly write software, I don't do the detailed safety case analysis which includes every potential failure mode that teams of engineers can imagine (including false activation), what the severity of that failure is in lots of cases (obviously worse doing 80mph on the highway than 10mph in your driveway), and what redundancies and checks need to be put into place to mitigate potential risk to within a tiny percentage without totally blowing the Bill of Materials cost.

Engineering, it's pretty cool.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be arguing that automated driving aids tend to interfere with real-world situations, while describing a real-world situation that is actually a glaring example of a horrible design defect with your car. You should have four wheels on the ground in all "real world" situations, end-of.

Your car is broken. And that's a piss-poor reason to be against automated driving aids.

I agree 100% in theory. How, in real-world terms, can society/government assure that automated systems, of _any_ kind, will _always_ help or enhance safety? That no situation or scenario could arise where the automated system causes a problem in which the human, given full control, might or could have done a better job?

And I have another stronger argument: even highly highly trained people (such as airline pilots) crash planes and kill hundreds of people because they become reliant on and accustomed to automated systems. After thousands of hours of flight with auto-pilots, human pilots make the most fundamental mistakes. Air France Flight 447 for example. AirAsia QZ8501 will probably be found to be a similar situation. Here's my problem: how do we deal with the scenario where a driver, who has years of driving in a very enhanced/automated car, then drives a non-enhanced car, or the automation fails, and the human doesn't know how to operate the vehicle?

Re:Not a fan

[Immerman]

In fairness self-driving cars must by necessity have a multitude of sensors and a "brain" that in some sense "understands" how it is interacting with the world around it. And they already have a pretty impressive track record compared to human drivers.

Sensor-driven safety systems on the other hand have an incredibly limited perspective, and usually only enough brains to implement a few heavily assumption-laden rules based on that grossly incomplete data. That they often make stupid mistakes is hardly surprising. I mean who thought it was a good idea to not let the car get within X feet of a barrier? Ensure that it slows down sufficiently to avoid a collision, sure, but if it were creeping forward at 5mph it can stop practically instantly. Hell, it could be a wonderful feature for a tight garage - just drive in and for the last second or so the car automatically slows to a crawl and stops with it's bumper almost touching the wall (or the "stop sign" you've put exactly where you want). Of course that could cause issues if you relied on it to stop you in traffic - on an upslope where the guy in front of you is driving a stick you will likely end up with a crunched bumper - but it's a *safety* feature, it's there to save your ass from disaster when you've failed in your job as driver - you don't want to encourage people to use it on a regular basis, it's too stupid for that to be a good idea.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Under what circumstances would braking be contraindicated where the space between you and an obstruction in your path of travel is decreasing rapidly?

Re:Not a fan

[ChumpusRex2003]

You raise an interesting point that the interaction of various sensor assist systems can be erratic

In your example, your description cannot be technically correct, although I am not denying that it introduces a degree of instability that would not otherwise exist. Traction control does not, and cannot, apply the brakes. It also does not assume you are or are not in a spin, only that one wheel has lost grip. More advanced systems, e.g. ESC, do detect spin, but they do it with a yaw rate sensor, so it is directly measured, not assumed. The normal operation of traction control is to detect one of the drive wheels spinning faster than the other wheels, and when activated it reduces engine torque (through triggering fuel cut, ignition retard, and/or electronic throttle closure).

One of the things that OEMs found after integrating systems like traction control, stability control, ABS, etc. was that at the boundaries of slip/acceleration/yaw between the systems and normal operation, there were discontinuities in the vehicle dynamics. So, that if you were accelerating, and a drive wheel slipped, there would be a sudden, dramatic reduction in engine torque; or in the event of an impending spin, there would be a dramatic braking of the inside wheel, which could lead to an overcorrection.

Over the last 5 years, the OEMs have realised this, and they have been working very hard to smooth the discontinuities that these systems create. There are all sorts of marketing words for this, e.g. Toyota have "Vehicle dynamics integrated management". All this means is that the sensitivity and power of these systems has been carefully matched to the car and each other, to avoid sudden shocks.

Re:Not a fan

[ColdWetDog]

In fact, given the large number of drivers who have difficulty differentiating between the front and the back of the vehicle, any automated system more advanced than a Radio Shack TRS-80 would be a significant improvement.

This is a pretty low bar we are dealing with here.

Re:Not a fan

[Bob9113]

Front suspension doesn't have an anti-roll bar, which allows more body roll than the rear suspension with the anti-roll bar can handle.

Re:Not a fan

[Bob9113]

Your car is broken. And that's a piss-poor reason to be against automated driving aids.

It came from the dealership that way. It is not a good reason to be against the theory, which I am not. It is, however, an excellent reason to be against their ubiquitous deployment as currently practiced. A point made exceedingly clear in the last paragraph of my post.

Re:Not a fan

[ShanghaiBill]

but if you have to remove control from the driver, then that driver is obviously doing something wrong

You seem to be saying that we should just accept accidents and injuries in any case where at least one person made a mistake, and therefore "deserved it". Over 95% of accidents are because of human errors. We aren't going to make much progress without correcting or preventing the errors.

Re:Not a fan

[mrchaotica]

No, the center of gravity isn't high enough that it would lead to a roll. A slide or a spin is more likely.

Lifting the inside rear tire is normal behavior for a small FWD car... but under racing conditions, not going around a freeway on-ramp!

Re: Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they make decaf amphetamines?

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the guy with a gun in front of me. I'd much rather he be goo than my car stop and my family be at their mercy (ha)

On the other hand might make a good way for highway robbery. Maybe some sort of cardboard popup with a remote trigger to stop the cars... profit.

Personally I think its just another gimmick to make cars more expensive.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Check-out the diagram about 2/3 of the way down the page:

http://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/879537-why-inside-rear-wheel-lift/

That explains why it is such a problem with that Honda model. They make some pretty bad cars, but that diagram shows how the S2000 is even worse than the rest. I fixed my S2000 by installing a much stronger front anti-roll bar, and I don't hit the gas at the apex of the curve any longer like you are typically supposed to. As a consequence of the stronger front anti-roll bar, the car understeers pretty badly at times. Also, if the pavement is rough, it makes the ride much worse and the understeer dangerous. The entrance ramp I use onto I-5 in Seattle every morning is pretty rough and tight, like a lot of them in this area, and i have to go slower than I do with even my wife's Subaru SVUish Forester. I need to accellerate to merge into traffic, but my Honda just isn't capable of doing that without a lot of drama. As soon as I finish paying it off, I'm buying a decent car.

Re:Not a fan

[nmalinoski]

You appear to be attempting to put words in my mouth, so to speak, with the "deserved it" and acceptance bits; don't do that. The entire point of my post is for prevention of those errors, by making people better drivers and by making optional automatic braking systems available for the people who want or need them without forcing that kind of tech on everyone. Automatic braking systems do not prevent drivers' errors, they simply attempt to mitigate the consequences of those errors.

Re:Not a fan

[Mr D from 63]

True, and in most cases that is just fine. I realize they are addressing the majority of situations, but sometimes you do not want to slow down when rapidly changing lanes, depending on where other vehicles are. I know, its not the most probably of situations, but I have more than once in my many years of driving encountered such conditions. In fact, I've had to accelerate to change lanes safely and avoid a car that suddenly moved in front of me after first almost running off the road.

Re:Not a fan

[jklovanc]

Yet the number of pedestrian fatalities has been rising.

I used to always blame the driver for hitting pedestrians until I had a couple of incidents with pedestrian texters.

In on case a pedestrian was waking on the sidewalk going in the same direction I was. He came to a perpendicular crosswalk and just turned left into it. He didn't stop or even look. Had I been ten feet forward I would have hit him.

In another instance I was looking for a parking spot and a girl walked out right in front of me from behind a truck. I stopped less than 2 feet from her. I ended up in line behind her at Starbucks and asked her about the incident. She never even knew I was there.

Another time I was travelling on a dark and rainy night. I was approaching a crosswalk and a person in very dark clothing came out from behind a power pole and strode into the street. I barely stopped.

There are too many pedestrians that are engrossed in their phones or iPods and do not look around. A vehicle can only avoid hitting a pedestrian if there is enough time. While the pedestrian may have the right of way it is always advisable to get eye contact with drivers before entering a crosswalk or intersection. You may be right but but you may also be dead right.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it shouldn't be forced on anybody. That way the Randian Ubermensch such as yourself who can think and respond faster than a computer, even when tired, distracted, perhaps slightly intoxicated... yep, that's a great idea to guarantee that we won't "remove control of the vehicle" from the driver when they do something dangerous or stupid.

There's a long history of these sorts of things - ABS systems "remove control" of the vehicle - if I jam on my brakes and want to skid, I should be able to! If I want to oversteer and launch myself in to a skid, I should be able to! If I want to accidentally stomp on my gas when I'm panicking trying to come to a stop because a car is dead in the road in front of me, I should be able to!

Here's the thing: No matter how good a driver you THINK you are, you are going to make mistakes. If there's a system that will correct them for you... that's GOOD. Don't give me bullshit about the "joy" of driving.

Re:Not a fan

[jklovanc]

And so it's not uncommon to hear statements like he "came out of nowhere," when in fact the pedestrian was crossing legally.

The pedestrian may have been crossing legally but at a time where the driver could not stop. Say I am driving legal limit of 30 mph down the road. The typical stopping distance is 75ft. What happens if the pedestrian enters the crosswalk when I am less than 75ft away? The pedestrian may have the right of way but the vehicle still could not stop in time.

There was one instance where a police car was approaching with lights an siren flashing. A pedestrian though she could beat the police car by dashing across the crosswalk. She didnt notice the car ther the cruiser was chasing till it hit her.

I have seen too many stupid pedestrian moves. Crosswalks are not magic shields that stop all vehicles. What ever happend to stop and look both ways before crossing? Pedestrian need to take responsibility for their own safety.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

> hundreds of test drives in Vipers

Which is dangerous because of the insane amount of torque. The Viper is an amazing car. The Honda is dangerous because they simply don't know how to make a rear-wheel drive car. I bought the first S2000 my local Honda dealer got in Februrary of 2000. The transmission was awesome. I've owned more than a dozen sports cars, and it was the best shifting transmission. On the other hand, the chasis was just a disaster. It was like it was made for a 100 HP car rather than a 240 HP car. It handled like crap at the extremes. After scaring myself a few times, I sold it. I bought a 2002 Corvette Z06, and after owning it for seven years, I didn't come nearly as close to having an accident as I did several times in the Honda. When someone that drives a Viper often and is a literal racedriver dies in one, you know it's a piece of crap.

Re:Not a fan

[jklovanc]

Just because one technology has issues has no bearing on whether or not an completely different technology has issues.

As for your "attentive and skilled driver" point, there are times when that is not good enough. For example, I was driving at a 2 second interval behind a van. It made a quick lane change. In front of it was another van. It took me a second to realize that van was not moving. It had no lights showing at all. I nearly hit it A braking asist device would have kicked in immediately when it calculated that I would hit the stationary van.

Re:Not a fan

[drinkypoo]

As soon as I finish paying it off, I'm buying a decent car.

Perhaps then you can make the Honda a full-track car. I followed your link and it sounds like mounting some super badass springs will solve your problem, at the expense of massive ride stiffness. I used to have a 240SX fastback on 550lb/in front and 500lb/in rear Eibachs and Koni Yellows (and about a 3" drop... scrape!) along with a limited slip, and it was absolutely ludicrous around corners. I eventually sold it because I moved to a county where the roads wouldn't support it, and started bending wheels. TSWs are cheap, but I'm not so flush that I can be replacing even them all the time. They were around 10lb wheels, though. That car even had stock sways, the rear was extra-puny but the front was pretty lame too.

Re:Not a fan

[Trax3001BBS]

If the safety feature enables the brakes when a crash is 'imminent', it takes away the driver's discretion during the times braking is not advisable.

During icy conditions, when I'd rather kill that deer instead of my family, or when a piece of black plastic blows across the roadway, are three that come to mind.

Yep, my first thought:
Deer's history anyhow why take the family with it, twice I've been in a car/truck when the hood opened on us, while a sudden stop wasn't necessary, these smart brakes going to allow one?

Hell with it, I'll just play cards and have my self driving car worry about it.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "designed" to lift a wheel, that's a side effect of compromises chasing other handling goals. A suspension configuration is always a compromise.
Given its reputation for dangerous snap back oversteer, it's probably saving more drivers doing something stupid on an open road than it is annoying auto-x and track day drivers with enough runoff area. It is effectively a relatively benign way of limiting corner exit throttle induced torque.

Re:Not a fan

[pjbgravely]

I think you mean stability control, not traction control. Most drivers would be in big trouble in tripod mode in what I am assuming is a hot hatch.

You will need to pull the fuse on the stability control or keep your fast driving on the track where it belongs.

Imaging being in a Chevrolet Camaro, which is billed as a fast car, that blows it's side airbags in an autocross even because it thinks it is rolling over. Modern cars with their nanny controls are ruined for any kind of motor sports.

Re:Not a fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Most hot hatches lift their outside rear wheel if you corner aggressively. The VW GTI being the most famous example. It's fine. It's not a design defect. The car isn't going to roll. If things go pear shaped it'll do so by losing grip in the front and understeering through the corner into a field or oncoming traffic.

The real problem is that it these cars only cock the wheel when you drive the thing much faster than is safe and legal on public roads. Do that shit at the track.

Re:Not a fan

[hypophthalmus]

The pedestrian may have been crossing legally but at a time where the driver could not stop. Say I am driving legal limit of 30 mph down the road. The typical stopping distance is 75ft. What happens if the pedestrian enters the crosswalk when I am less than 75ft away? The pedestrian may have the right of way but the vehicle still could not stop in time.

You wouldn't actually need to come to a complete stop, you would just need to get on the side of the lane and slow down so they can clear your car. If they were walking at a leisurely rate of 2 miles per hour, you could get by with not slowing down a bit about 90 feet away. If they were going the average speed of 3.1, you could stay at the speed limit as little as 58 feet away.

Under about 30 feet, you should be able to stay close to the middle of the road and avoid them, even if you don't accelerate, assuming a 9 foot wide lane.

That leaves a 28 foot stretch where you actually need to be doing any braking or accelerating at all.

But here's the most important bit: even under these circumstances you're acting too late. At every cross walk, *you* should be looking both ways for pedestrians liable to cross. You start reacting when you see a crosswalk, not when you see a pedestrian in your path.

Re:Not a fan

[stoatwblr]

"Yet the number of pedestrian fatalities has been rising"

Which is why many of the more recent regulatory changes have been aimed at making things safer for them.

EU crash testing even includes a category for pedestrian safety.

Re:Not a fan

[jklovanc]

Under about 30 feet, you should be able to stay close to the middle of the road and avoid them, even if you don't accelerate, assuming a 9 foot wide lane.

Given 1 foot clearance on each side of the vehicle and a vehicle width of 5 feet gives a 3 foot clearance for the pedestrian. It the pedestrian is in the 3 foot area in the middle of the lane there is not enough room to go around. Many accidents are causes when pedestrians panic at seeing the approaching vehicle and stop in the middle of the lane.

At every cross walk, *you* should be looking both ways for pedestrians liable to cross.

You are assuming visibility is perfect at all crosswalks. There are many obstructions such as parked vehicles, telephone poles, other people, etc that obstruct your view of crossing pedestrians. If you add night, rain and/or dark clothing it gets even worse. In one instance I was traveling in the same direction as a pedestrian who was playing with his phone. He turned left into a crosswalk without stopping or even looking. How was I supposed to anticipate that move? Luckily I had time to stop. Had I been ten feet closer we would have hit.

I don't see how you can defend not stopping and looking before entering a crosswalk. Yes, some drivers need to be more attentive but some pedestrians need to be more attentive as well.

Re:Not a fan

[hypophthalmus]

I'm not defending not stopping and looking before entering a crosswalk, only suggesting that the cards aren't so stacked against a good, defensive driver.

If you're driving down a street packed with parked cars on a rainy night, I would suggest taking that into account, especially when you see a crosswalk up ahead. It's not much different than approaching an intersection where you have a yield sign.

The lesson to have learned from your encounter is that a pedestrian might choose to turn onto a crosswalk without warning. Anticipating this possibility should cut down your response time.

Re:Not a fan

[Entrope]

In some cases, yes. In the other cases where I've noticed it, the turning car was already far enough out of the lane that I could drive past it while staying entirely within my lane.

Re:Not a fan

[HornWumpus]

Still nothing like an explanation of why traction control would even be looking at a non-driven wheel. ABS would just pulse the brakes on that corner (or back end if it was really crappy ABS).

Change the story to 'stability control', makes it not obviously BS.

Re:Not a fan

[zieroh]

Wrong. Most hot hatches lift their outside rear wheel if you corner aggressively. The VW GTI being the most famous example. It's fine. It's not a design defect.

It's a design defect if it's coupled with traction control, dipshit.

Re:Not a fan

[zieroh]

the inside rear wheel lifting is acceptable behavior in a light front wheel drive car in a hard turn, and is not dangerous.

It's certainly a design defect if traction control kicks in for an expected behavior.

Don't apply compression gently

[alphatel]

a third of ... accidents were the rear-end crashes and a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!) ... before impact.

Because Russian

Smarter Brakes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend cars with smarter drivers.

Pst! Want to know a secret?

[Anonymous Coward]

As Administrator.

Yup. I run all my applications this way. Power. That's why. Power.

didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!)

[lkcl]

this is not a surprise. i have good 3d visual modelling ability, which allowed me to assess gaps between vehicles and drive at 30mph near curbs or bollards in width-restricted areas with an inch to spare either side, for example. i remember one day, a former partner and i, driving along a motorway. approximately fifty times throughout an hour-long journey, she would drive in the middle lane directly up to the back of a car in front at more than 15mph faster than the other vehicle, *apply the brakes* when the vehicle in front was only 8 to 10 metres away, and then and *only then* look in the side mirror to see if it was safe to change lane.

by contrast i would be constantly looking left, right and back (which is actually very tiring), would know where all vehicles were, even up to a mile away in either direction, and, using 3D modelling based on speeds and locations of other vehicles, would *predict* whether it was necessary for me to speed up or slow down in order to merge into faster (or slower) traffic in order to overtake vehicles *plural* in front. or, in some cases, whether to simply sit there happily at the speed of the vehicles in front.

now, this person - my former partner - drove an average of *four to five hours* per day like this. but if they are anything to go by, i am honestly and genuinely not surprised to hear that there are people who cannot judge distances, for whom the world is 2D, devoid of depth and the awareness that goes with it.

*that having been said*... the addition of "features" that apply the brakes without permission seem like an incredibly bad idea. i am reminded of a discussion recently... allow me to quote:

"We inadvertently built our own panic and short-sightedness into
the very systems designed to protect us from our worst impulses"

http://aeon.co/magazine/techno...

then, also, there is the failure of the three laws of robotics (yes, asimov's work demonstrated that the three laws are an *outright failure*, not a success). the three laws basically provided robots that *prevented* humanity from taking risks. on a species-level, the three laws *terminated* our evolution and advancement.

so, honestly, i have to say that if people cannot have the good sense to be sufficiently aware when driving a 1500 kilogramme object that is capable of causing death to themselves and those in the immediate vicinity, then please, with much respect and love, give them family a darwin award, be glad that they weren't driving in *your* vicinity at the time, and be glad that our species gene pool's "average spacial awareness" capability just went up a tiny notch.

Re:didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!)

[X0563511]

I would say that your modelling experience has given you a good spatial sense, rather.

I'm kind of in the same boat. I keep track of who's around me and where they are moving. It's rare (but it does happen) that I see a car in a space I didn't expect, and that's usually because something else was masking it (larger car, etc) and I do keep that in mind).

clarification of certain situations

[ihtoit]

"a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!) "

For the simple reason that they were distracted, were not watching the road, simply were not aware of imminent danger like a big fuckoff lump of iron in front of them... BAM! 70+mph right up some poor bastard's arse.

THIS, folks, is why driving without due care and attention should be more severely punished than it is. It does cost lives.

Re:clarification of certain situations

[Anonymous Coward]

Or... I have had one crash in my twenty years driving. It was the day after I got my car back from a repair shop: they had just replaced the brakes. I hit the brakes to slow down coming into a stoplight, and the car didn't slow at all. I ended up underneath a pickup truck that then slid forward into the next car. At my trial for causing an accident, the judge looked at the receipt for the work done at the brake shop, absolved me of guilt, and told me to sue the brake shop.

The new safety gear being proposed here won't help that kind of problem, but it will introduce new potential points of failure.

Re:clarification of certain situations

[OzPeter]

simply were not aware of imminent danger like a big fuckoff lump of iron in front of them... BAM! 70+mph right up some poor bastard's arse.

Last week there was an accident in Virginia where a minivan ran off the freeway. Several firetrucks attended the scene, and camped out in the lane next to where the car ran off the road. Some idiot managed to run himself into the back of one of the firetrucks at speed and kill himself. I still can't understand how you can't see the lights of a firetruck in the middle of the lane you are driving in, and not think to slow down or change lanes. And with this accident occurring on a freeway, its not as if the previous accident scene was hidden around a bend.

For bonus points, all 6 people in the minivan were wearing seat belts, and all survived with non-life threatening injuries. The driver of the car that ran into the firetruck was not wearing a seatbelt - and died. (of course a seatbelt won't help you if you run into a fixed object at high speed)

Police ID driver killed after crashing into Henrico fire truck

Re:clarification of certain situations

[ihtoit]

was he looking at the display on his cellphone or satnav rather than what was out in front of his vehicle?

Re:clarification of certain situations

[ihtoit]

he told you to sue the brake shop. He didn't say "Oh, well, we'll prosecute the brake shop!" It's still down to you, as the person in control of the vehicle, to ensure its safety systems are in fact functional. If the person you put to the task of maintenance/repair fails to carry it out to a suitable standard (ie the brake engages when you push on the pedal vs it doesn't), you have a claim against him, but the person you hit/injure or the family of the one you kill will have claim against YOU and not the Kwik Fit engineer who "forgot" to reattach your hydraulic line.

Absolving you of guilt in the situation isn't absolving you of wrongdoing, you as controller of the vehicle have still caused injury. What the judge did for you was keep you out of jail by acknowledging that you didn't do it on purpose, that you acted in good faith that your brakes were functional and on the assumption that they were in a safe condition, since you did take it to a qualified mechanic, left the garage based on that assumption and not with malice aforethought that you planned to run somebody over or total a stack of vehicles.

Re:clarification of certain situations

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week there was an accident in Virginia where a minivan ran off the freeway. Several firetrucks attended the scene, and camped out in the lane next to where the car ran off the road. Some idiot managed to run himself into the back of one of the firetrucks at speed and kill himself. I still can't understand how you can't see the lights of a firetruck in the middle of the lane you are driving in, and not think to slow down or change lanes. And with this accident occurring on a freeway, its not as if the previous accident scene was hidden around a bend.

For bonus points, all 6 people in the minivan were wearing seat belts, and all survived with non-life threatening injuries. The driver of the car that ran into the firetruck was not wearing a seatbelt - and died. (of course a seatbelt won't help you if you run into a fixed object at high speed)

Police ID driver killed after crashing into Henrico fire truck

A good decade ago now, but one night I was driving home at like midnight, in the middle lane of 3 on the highway, slowly gaining on a guy in the slow (right) lane as we were going up a slight incline, when I saw him hit his brakes just at the top of the hill... (there were no other cars on the road for at least a mile or two ahead, I'd been gaining on him for at least 2mi). I took my foot off the gas instantly, wondering what he hit his brakes for - and then saw the deer prancing around in the middle of the road and hit my brakes as well...

... meanwhile a guy was coming up behind me (doing well over the speed limit). Now, one might think if you see the two people ahead of you, in two different lanes, hitting their brakes, you *might* consider slowing down, right? Nope, he pulled into the left (fast) lane while *accelerating* behind me to pass... nailed that deer doing at least 70mph (in a 55 zone), the poor thing flew a good 15' into the air and *over* the divider in the middle of the highway. Amazingly they were ok, seat belts on and air bags, but the car was obviously trashed. Some people just make really poor decisions.

Re: clarification of certain situations

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the fuck the emergency brake is for.

I have been saved at least twice by using this mechanical-only invention decades old.

Re: clarification of certain situations

[HornWumpus]

It's amazing how few people still know to pump their brakes when they fail. It doesn't always help, but is always better then leaving your foot down.

Re:clarification of certain situations

[Anonymous Coward]

In my country the accident rate of people running into the sign trucks blocking lanes for accidents and roadwork is actually on a meteoric rise.

Re: clarification of certain situations

[Immerman]

One more reason not to brake aggressively. If you're in the habit of slamming on the brakes at the last moment, then if/when they fail the second or so it takes for even a competent, alert person to realize that and apply the parking brake means it's already too late to avoid at least a minor collision. The lag is normally hidden by our perceptions, but it takes ~1/8th of a second just for the signal to release the wheel to travel from your brain to your fingers.

Didn't hit "Send" yet

[tompaulco]

a third of 2013's police-reported car accidents were the rear-end crashes and a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!)

That is because they didn't hit send yet. They were still staring at their phone and not concerned whatsoever with the innocents in the car with them, or the innocents in the car in front of them.
Another poster said that texters have worse response time than drunks. That is probably not true, because drunks at least have a response time. You can't respond to something when all of your sensory input is focused on something else. For texters, the response comes after the crash.
I have noticed a trend for years that rear end collisions have been getting more prevalent and the damage more severe. It was like people weren't even hitting the brakes. I blamed it on texting while driving. Now the statistics are saying the same thing.
However, I am NOT in favor of the new devices to apply the brakes when the driver doesn't. Automation in the cockpit will only lead to stupid people becoming MORE complacent in the car and will increase their irresponsible behaviors. Instead of looking up every other character to see what is going on, they will just stare continuously at their phone until they have finished their message.
Perhaps I could see having such a braking system if, after a single auto-braking incident, the car disabled itself except for low speed travel so it could pull over to the shoulder, and then, travel over 10 mph was disabled until the car was reset by a qualified driving instructor.

Re:Didn't hit "Send" yet

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I am NOT in favor of the new devices to apply the brakes when the driver doesn't.

So you would prefer more people dead to teach them a lesson? Sorry. I do not wish to die to "teach" some idiot a lesson to look at the road.

These technologies are stepping stones to 100% self-driving vehicles. I would prefer ALL cars and trucks have them ASAP. I would prefer that ALL cars are 100% self-driving too which would make my motorcycle or bicycle much much safer.

If people want to remain in control of their vehicles, these should be limited to motorcycles. At least on a motorcycle, you can't really get distracted by texting.

Re:Didn't hit "Send" yet

[Anonymous Coward]

A nice idea, but wouldn't work. Things like pulling into a parking space can trigger the auto-break. Now you're stuck going 10 mph back from the supermarket. Also doing 10 mph everywhere would be a danger in lots of places.

Re:Didn't hit "Send" yet

[nehumanuscrede]

Mandate a short range transmitter into the car that phone tech can pick up within a few feet. While vehicle is moving > x mph, transmission is running and the phones know to block all comms with the exception of emergency ( 911 or the like ) calls. Want to make a call or text your buddy ? Pull over and do it.

The more intelligent will be able to find and disable said transmission, but if you're smart enough to do that, then you're smart enough not to text on the phone while driving in the first place :D

Removing the smartphone from the equation would decrease traffic incidents by quite a bit.

The government needs to stay out of car design.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so fucking sick of idiotic vehicle design ideas being mandated
by government.

A good example is "daytime running lights". This moronic design
tends to cause many drivers to forget to switch their lights on when
darkness falls, because the daytime running lights make these drivers
think their headlights are already switched on when they are not switched
on. The result is cars driving in the dark with NO TAIL LIGHTS.

Fuck the government and all its "we will make the world safe for you" bullshit.
More often than not, the end result is worse than if nothing had been done.

.

Re:The government needs to stay out of car design.

[ledow]

The problem is not the technology.

Like everything wrong with the article, the problem is crappy drivers.

Rear/side lights are there TO BE SEEN.
Headlights are there to SEE BY.

If you have a driver who doesn't know they have no rear-lights, they may not be seen by you. But if you have them without headlights IN THE FUCKING DARK, they are bad, stupid, dangerous drivers. This is not affected by whether they are running on DRL or sidelights or no lights at all. They are fucking dangerous and can't see where they are going and NOT NOTICING.

And if you're driving on a road and can't see the car in front of you, even in twilight, I suggest you put your fucking headlights on and/or stop driving until you've had your eyes checked.

DRL policy does not cause any danger that was not there previously. Many places in Europe have had DRL for decades.

Being a fucking idiot that's peering into the darkness and can't see the car in front, that's the problem.

Re:The government needs to stay out of car design.

[drinkypoo]

Rear/side lights are there TO BE SEEN.
Headlights are there to SEE BY.

Well, to be fair, headlights are also to be seen with. The apparent color of the lights and reflectors on a vehicle tells you which direction it is facing, especially here in the USA where we mandate orange reflectors on the front corners.

Re:The government needs to stay out of car design.

[LazyBoot]

I am so fucking sick of idiotic vehicle design ideas being mandated
by government.

A good example is "daytime running lights". This moronic design
tends to cause many drivers to forget to switch their lights on when
darkness falls, because the daytime running lights make these drivers
think their headlights are already switched on when they are not switched
on. The result is cars driving in the dark with NO TAIL LIGHTS.

Fuck the government and all its "we will make the world safe for you" bullshit.
More often than not, the end result is worse than if nothing had been done.

.

Where I live the mandated "daytime running lights" includes the tail lights.

I can fix all shitty driving

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandate dash/rear cams and simple radar. When I'm in my car and see someone tailgating, speeding, swerving all over, cutting people off, hanging in the passing lane, driving on the shoulder, texting/reading a paper, completely turned around in their seat, looking for the joint they dropped...I just push a button and the last 30 seconds of video, data, is saved for reporting. Since the cops can't be bothered or are simply unable to catch it all. We should.

As soon as people realized that they are actual consequences to driving like shit it will stop.

Re:I can fix all shitty driving

[Anonymous Coward]

>As soon as people realized that they are actual consequences to driving like shit it will stop.

No, you're wrong, it won't stop.

Prosecutors and judges use the "a stiff penalty will act as a deterrent"
flawed logic all the time to justify the sentences they ask for and deliver.
There is not a single shred of proof that someone else being penalized
has had any effect on the behavior of the rest of society. If you don't think
this is true, then why are people still exceeding the speed limit, when the cops
have all sorts of technology which makes it trivially easy to give a driver
a speeding ticket ?

Re:I can fix all shitty driving

[Anonymous Coward]

So the risk of prison or death isn't enough to stop ALL murders so there should be no penalty at all?

What fucking idiocy.

Re:I can fix all shitty driving

[Anonymous Coward]

So the risk of prison or death isn't enough to stop ALL murders so there should be no penalty at all?

What fucking idiocy.

No, you're the idiot here.

You jumped to an erroneous conclusion based purely on something
you imagined.

I never suggested that penalties would not have any effect.
I suggested that penalties would not end all objectionable
driving behavior, and that IS true.

It was YOU who assumed that I meant penalties were useless,
but if you had reading comprehension which was better than
a retard-level mouth breather you would never have jumped to
that conclusion.

Go do something you are actually good at, you suck at reading and
commenting.

A realy cost/benefit analysis would be nice...

[bradley13]

Would it be too much to ask for them to explicitly discuss cost/benefit of something like this?

Example: Our car has some "smart" routine for detecting glare ice on the road. I don't know if it has ever been right - but there have been literally hundreds of false posltives over the years. Thankfully, it doesn't do anything but beep annoyingly.

Imagine if your car foes into full emergency braking, whenever it thinks an accident is imminent. What level of false positives is acceptable? What level of false negatives? How many accidents are statistlcally likely to be prevented? How many will be caused. Assuming a positive balance, what are the financial costs of building this system into all vehicles - and what is the resultant cost in dollars/life? These are the kinds of information that the Traffic Safety Administration ought to be publishing with their proposal.

If you look at the detailed report, they break the system into three parts. All together, they expect the system to prevent about 100 deaths per year (plus a larger number of injuries. There is a very brief discussion of false positives that arose in their test scenarios (e.g., in section 4.8.1.4), but absolutely no attempt to estimate the number of accidents caused by the system.

Consider how many rear-end accidents the average person has, over how many years and miles. Then figure the reliability - the number of false positives - that can be tolerated - the number is essentially zero. Achieving this will require extraordinarily reliable sensors and software, which willwill be technically difficult and financially costly. None of this is addresses in the report.

We paractice driving not emergency driving

[RichMan]

Simulators are very good these days. Part of driver training and testing should include emergency driving training including accidents.
Testing of youth and retesting of seniors should include stressful emergency situations requiring quick decision making and actions.

Driving is a privilidge and not a right.

Cheap safety systems arent very safe

[burtosis]

For example on my 2002 Subaru impreza wrx the antilock brakes have almost caused an accident. On dry clean pavement, but with a couple of potholes, the wheel speeds can differ enough to activate the abs system. Then that prevents you from actually braking hard for a time of almost two seconds. It makes me want to disable the system unless I actually need it such as when the roads are icy. I was exiting the freeway when the driver ahead unexpectedly stopped in a dedicated turn lane for no real reason (probably just an over cautious bad driver). I went to brake and hit a pothole at the same time and found I couldn't. Then I had to panic press the brakes as hard as I could and wound up stopping much slower and came uncomfortably close to the stopped car. Honestly it's better to optionally bypass the abs on that car unless you need it because it cripples the ability to stop properly in good conditions and an attentive driver can do better.

Re:Cheap safety systems arent very safe

[drinkypoo]

On dry clean pavement, but with a couple of potholes, the wheel speeds can differ enough to activate the abs system.

You know you're supposed to dodge the potholes, right?

Re:Cheap safety systems arent very safe

[burtosis]

Except these were quite wide where the pavement had been repaired. When you are in minnesota the roads are bad enough dodging potholes isn't practical. Furthermore people have been ticketed for dodging them. Apparently its a minor crime to deviate from your lane even for potholes.

smart brakes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Rear end crashes". An automated braking system is not going to overcome the consequences of following too closely.

Ticket for Tailgating?

[danomatika]

Lot's of rear end crashes, you say? How about people get nailed for tailgating more often?

Where I live in the north east, people routinely travel 70+ mph with as little as 4-5 feet between them. It's like the automatic driving car caravans of the future minus the automatic and future part. NO WONDER there are so many huge pileups month after month when most people do not see to even attempt to maintain a reasonable minimum distance between themselves are other cars at speed.

We really don't *need* more automatic features. I predict the majority of people buying braking assist now assume they don't have to worry about distance because "the computer" will "hit the brakes for them". It's like how people with 4WD or AWD assume they can drive full speed on ice.

Re:Ticket for Tailgating?

[drinkypoo]

I predict the majority of people buying braking assist now assume they don't have to worry about distance because "the computer" will "hit the brakes for them".

If they use the speed-adaptive cruise control that comes with it, then they're right, too.

Re:Ticket for Tailgating?

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict the majority of people buying braking assist now assume they don't have to worry about distance because "the computer" will "hit the brakes for them".

If they use the speed-adaptive cruise control that comes with it, then they're right, too.

No, "they" are NOT right !!

Here is why :

If you are driving close to vehicles in front of you and there is an accident in the lane in
which your vehicle is traveling, following too closely will reduce your chances of avoiding
an accident. What constitutes a safe margin with respect to following distance is a constantly
changing thing, and electronics have not yet advanced to the point where things like adaptive
cruise control can substitute for a competent driver when traffic and road conditions are not
a static set of conditions.

.

Re:Ticket for Tailgating?

[drinkypoo]

If you are driving close to vehicles in front of you

You either don't know what speed-adaptive cruise control is, or you can't read English. Either way, you are not qualified to participate in this discussion.

Re:Ticket for Tailgating?

[jklovanc]

Where I live in the north east, people routinely travel 70+ mph with as little as 4-5 feet between them.

Then there are the times when one is following at 2 seconds, someone changes lanes and slows down in front of them.

Love collision avoidance in my Volvo

[swb]

If I had bought my car new and was looking at features to add or avoid, I would have put the collision avoidance system on my "meh" list and would not have paid extra for it.

As it turns out, I really like it. I have the control setup for maximum distance, which means more false alerts. But although most alerts seem "false" they're only false because I'm really paying attention and have anticipated the traffic in front of me. About 25% of the time I think it's actually valuable and there was some risk of either a really quick stop or maybe even a fender bender.

The feature that goes along with it (they share the same radar system), distance sensing cruise control, I REALLY like. I wish it would beep or something when you get behind a vehicle driving 3+ MPH slower than your set point. On the Interstate its kind of easy to get in traffic going slower than I want to by small amounts and not noticing it because the car just matches pace with the vehicle in front.

Re:Love collision avoidance in my Volvo

[xlv]

she was trying to adjust the stereo (i will call this a huge influencing factor, we have a touch screen display)

That is the actual problem. Whoever thought having a touch screen display as the user interface in a car should be banned from working in the auto industry.

Re:Love collision avoidance in my Volvo

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, now imagine that your "collision warning" system that you love applies the brakes instead of just lighting an "idiot light" on the dash. Now rather than being "valuable" even if there are a few "false" warnings, your car is now PANIC braking for NO VALID REASON! This is not a good idea...

I happen to also have a vehicle with "collision warning" that thankfully just lights an "idiot light" on the dash (2015 Honda Odyssey). I HATE the system and have turned it off completely. Why? Because of the false alerts. Like the ones on a straight road with ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER CARS besides mine on the road!

In my experience, these systems are not ready for prime time and there is NO WAY I would buy a vehicle with a system such as this that applied the brakes for me.

P.S. I have also had vehicles with "following distance" sensing speed control. It's great until you realize that it DOESN'T WORK on curves and that it gets confused when you are changing lanes (especially when you are pulling out to pass semis). I will never again buy a vehicle with this kind of cruise control.

Re:Love collision avoidance in my Volvo

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree, the "actual problem" is that too many distracting toys are being offered to the driver! While a tactile control is better, having an equivalent array of knobs and buttons would still be bad.

Ideally, the driver would only have access to a very few (tactile) controls while the vehicle is moving, with all the detailed stuff limited to the passenger seat unless at a complete stop.

Re:Love collision avoidance in my Volvo

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the airbags deployed too fast. I think they deployed as fast as in Europe, except in US people don't like to wear seatbelts and get hurt being too close to the deploying airbag. So in US we have "depowered airbags" or some other gimmick to account for people not wearing seatbelts.

Airplanes handle it better

[Anonymous Coward]

Airplanes have had collision avoidance systems for years and they've never found it worth the safety trade off to add active avoidance behaviors. Passive alerting of the operator is where the balance of safety lies.

Re:Airplanes handle it better

[ceoyoyo]

Airline pilots are rather better trained than the average driver. Things also tend to happen more slowly in the air. If you're ever in a collision situation that requires action as quick as you're probably used to on a daily basis in your car, you've screwed up royally.

Re:Airplanes handle it better

[Anonymous Coward]

Airbus is studying the option of adding automated action if the pilot ignores a TCAS warning and a collision is imminent.

Re:Airplanes handle it better

[TimSSG]

Airbus seems to think pilots are stupid. But, in their defense there does seem to have been a lot of Airbus accidents caused by pilot error. So, either Airbus pilots are more stupid or their training is really bad. Tim S.

Still trying to fix stupid drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, technology is still trying to fix stupid drivers. Rather then working to improve skills, reduce DUI's, and devices that distract drivers. We now just keep beefing up safety equipment. I think back to the ad where the guy is thinking about everything but driving. Did he leave garage door up? Did he make that appointment? Meanwhile supposedly the cars safety equipment prevents him from side swiping a vehicle changing lanes, a rear end collision and helps provide a obvious driver who is not focused on driving some warning and assistance for his lack of driving focus. Have we totally given up on improving ourselves? Now let's just let technology handle it. I guarantee a stupid driver will find a way to crash regardless of all the safety you can put in a car.

The smarter your breaks...

[Anonymous Coward]

The less control you have over them.

Re: The government needs to stay out of car design

[Ksevio]

But that is solved by automatic headlights that turn on when it gets dark. No need to do something manually that can be automated

Ablative bumpers

[Anonymous Coward]

If they would just let me have my ablative bumper, the other car would already fall apart in strategic places prior to impact with me...

Yay another broken sensor

[Anonymous Coward]

and another dashboard indicator light to ignore.

Including

[kqc7011]

With "a third of 2013's police-reported car accidents were the rear-end crashes" how many of these occurred where there are red light cameras?

You do not want "fuzzy" in laws

[laurencetux]

if you give enough fuzz in the laws then it will turn into a Driving While Colored law.

Combine this with seizure laws and you will have Greater Boars "car shopping" left right and center/centre.

Hey Automakers when are we getting even KITTs dumb brother in cars??

Not broken, just (guessing) a VW Golf

[Anonymous Coward]

My old Golf would do that, it's just the way they worked.

Love collision avoidance in my Volvo

[Anonymous Coward]

Bought a car with early warning collision detection. Was grumbling that I spent $1500 above sticker for the car. Thought the purchase was stupid and I just had a fancy piece of tech that I would never use (i'm a good driver remember?). Then the day came when my girlfriend at the time rushed into the front door panting for air telling me she was trying to adjust the stereo (i will call this a huge influencing factor, we have a touch screen display) and didn't see a car nearly stopped on an onramp to the highway (we had traffic reports, there was no traffic, the car just was afraid to pull out to the highway). The radio mutes, a loud bell starts ringing and a bright red light flashes on the windshield. She said she looked up in time to feel the car start slowing down and so she mashed the brakes. She didn't think she did anything and the car stopped for her. I praised that $1500 add-on and will now recommend it to anyone. I would not say she is an inattentive driver, but just like other humans out there accidents happen. In this case the accident did not happen and my $40k car was saved (come on this is Slashdot, I care about my tech more than my gfs ;)

Caveats are large metallic objects on the side of a curving road tend to throw the system off. Not enough to apply the brakes but enough for it to start audibly warning you. This is resolved by adjusting the sensitivity, which I don't trust my fellow drivers to set correctly.. so to a point I think this system is not yet ready for prime time, but maybe that is still needed to finish advancing the technology (remember when airbags deployed too fast for the first 7 years of their requirement and were replaced with 2, 3 and even 5 stage deployment airbags?)

Also, I am all for mandatory backup cameras. No excuse that you didn't see me walking my child behind your car :\

Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

As an automotive electronics engineer I don't believe you. The whole point of a traction control system is to modulate wheel torque to maintain yaw rate. If it used wheel speed to determine yaw rate there is no way for it to know whether it is seeing an actual yaw event or one it has induced itself. Every system I know of uses a gyroscope mapped to the steering angle sensor. The control loop manages braking/throttle to keep these lined up.

What you are describing is just good old fashioned suspension/tyre adhesion failure inducing an unstable oscillation mode due to the sharp static/dynamic friction coefficient transition of budget high profile road tyres, fitted to a car that is most likely experiencing severe chassis flex. The solution to that is buy a better car or slow the fuck down on public roads, not blame traction control.

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

As an automotive technician, no. The system you described would not be traction control, as traction control is to prevent wheel spin. It does this precisely by polling the wheel speed sensors to determine if any wheels are spinning considerably faster than the others. In some implementations, it may additionally poll the vehicle speed sensor. The steering angle sensor is entirely irrelevant to the traction control system. What you have described is stability control, a related but different system.

Better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

automated gun turrets on the highways to headshot anyone caught texting

agree totally

[Ol Olsoc]

On a recent long trip down Interstate 95, I was regularly drafted by people. I would be driving roughly the speed limit, usually about 5 over, and here comes some asshat that apparently believes that proper following distance is 6 inches away from my rear bumper. The completely odd thing is at most times, they could have just passed me. I was in the right hand lane, and the passing lane was clear. They're just - oh what is the word? Gaddamned idiots. Slow down, and they slow down, speed up, they do the same. Christ, they could at least offer to buy me dinner and a movie if they are so intent on crawling up my ass.

One young woman was almost touching the bumper of the car in front of her as she passed us. Oh, she was having a great time Singing to some music she had on, must have been heading to vacation from the Northeast to Florida. About 15 miles down the road, there she was in the median, wrecked after running into the back end of the car in front of her. No one could have seen that coming. Everyone has NASCAR driver like reflexes. Hell, even NASCAR drivers don't have NASCAR driver like reflexes.

So yeah, since stupid asshats refuse to follow at anywhere near a safe distance, it looks like we need to have collision avoidance radar on cars. This isn't the evil guvmint infringing on anyone's freedom, its one of those your rights to tailgate people end at my bumper, and your ability to stop in time.

Re:agree totally

[maz2331]

I can't stand asshats who follow so closely. More than once, I've flipped over to sport mode and floored it to get some distance. Having a faster car is sometimes a great safety feature!

Re:agree totally

[Anonymous Coward]

do not be afraid of briefly using your rear fog light in this kind of situation.

Re:agree totally

[Ol Olsoc]

do not be afraid of briefly using your rear fog light in this kind of situation.

Years ago, I had my high beams on behind a truck He turned his on me, and I learned a quick lesson. I did really piss of someone once by continually washing my windshield. At 70, most of the fluid ends up on the car behind you.

Never for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Have owned several cars that tried to "drive themselves" and never, ever again will I purchase a car in which every single electronic aid can't be turned off. I don't even especially like ABS as two of the cars I've owned it activated over-aggressively and routinely increased stopping distance under threshold breaking over uneven surfaces. Don't even get me started on the stability control (which did nothing except prevent the car from turning properly, especially in slippery conditions) and the TCS which prevented acceleration and routinely caused an "inability to proceed" in icy conditions where I should have been able to accelerate OK (albeit very slowly). Admittedly, I'm actively involved in motor-sports (and am honestly quite good at them), so I understand, and practice, a lot of skills that typical drivers don't (but should). Regardless, because I understand how fast a car should be stopping, how it should be turning, how it should be handling, I learned that, at least in daily-drivers, the electronic controls are no where near as good as a well-trained driver. That might be different for modern Porsches or other exotics I suppose (but I doubt it). I also don't know if it's a good idea to teach people how *not* to drive in emergency situations and then leave them helpless when they drive something without those nannies. I would far, far prefer a system in which we (in the USA) demand that drivers be properly trained before getting a license, and are tested occasionally to make sure they keep up those skills. I've moved back to purely analog cars (not even any ABS) for both daily drivers and motorsports and will never look back, all the aids ever did for me was hamper my driving and frustrate me. Once or twice they were actually responsible for nearly causing accidents when the car refused to respond properly, had I not been quick enough to respond manually to correct the car's "corrections" accidents would have occurred. Doesn't speak well of the electronic controls at this point...

Who's liable when it fails or backfires?

[Khashishi]

When making something safer, we can expect more lawsuits, not less, as we might naively expect. It doesn't matter if we can statistically show that a new technology saves lives. If auto manufacturers put this feature into their vehicles, suddenly it is their fault when the feature fails to prevent an accident, or causes causes an accident where one would not have occurred. Previously, the driver would be liable.

technology resulting in lax behavior

[confused one]

background information: I own and personally drive both ends of the spectrum, a 2014 model car and a 1970 model year truck. The 2014 has all the available electronics features. The 1970... the only electronic device in that vehicle is the ignition module; and, that was an upgrade (I hate setting points). The 1970 truck doesn't even have power brakes. I'm not a luddite. Hell, I make a living as an engineer working for a company that designs and manufactures sensors; I'm not going to argue against technology.

To the point: I read this discussion and I listen to people talking about the active cruise control and collision avoidance systems in their cars and I come to an unfortunate conclusion... These systems can and do lead to people becoming less attentive while they drive. I totally get that these systems save lives. It's just that I see people becoming dependent on these systems and not using them as they are intended.

I saved someone from a rear ender the other day

[chaosdivine69]

I was stopped in traffic the other day at a light and was watching in my rear view mirror that a big 4x4 truck in the lane next to me was not slowing down at all and was about to smoke the guy in front of him. I have no idea how he could have missed the fact that all 4 lanes of traffic were stopped for the light. I leaned on my horn hardcore and that luckily caught the stopped guy's attention in front of the 4x4 truck and he managed at the last second to get out of the way. It was literally inches separating this guy from a really bad day and maybe even a fire. I felt a little moment of positive Karma after that...good duty of the day.

It ain't rocket science

[Radical Moderate]

"a third of 2013's police-reported car accidents were the rear-end crashes and a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!) "

It's frickin tailgaters. Even if you're being very attentive, there's a delay between the time you see brake lights on the car in front of you, and the time you hit the brakes. Throw in texting and other distractions, and if you're traveling too close you're eating bumper before you can hit the brake pedal. And half the drivers on the road are following too close. I say bring on the auto-braking systems to protect me from these idiots.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of me says this will just help crappy drivers get away with even crappier driving. The other part of me that rides a motorcycle says bring it on, the most dangerous thing to motorcyclists is getting plowed down from the rear.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Mal-2]

Also, swoop and squat. No computer is going to help there either. However, having the computer active may help demonstrate that there was no way to avoid the collision, and that it was not your fault.

Same reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars don't always work perfectly. Therefore, cars are bad.

Beat still blows, really blows.

[Anonymous Coward]

I try but I can't stand the fucking sight of this abortion of design merged with smugness. A UI designers wet dream of the coming age, Web X, Gen YY, Beiber the yolk release, Spinal Tap 11. Just let it die, unless the nephew of Dice CEO did it, then its double plus good.

Re: The government needs to stay out of car design

[Anonymous Coward]

But that is solved by automatic headlights that turn on when it gets dark. No need to do something manually that can be automated

So then all cars must be retrofitted with automated headlight systems?

Primite Is Better

[JimSadler]

People in many areas suffer major difficulties if a car will not start or function. Complexity leads to vulnerability. The more parts or systems a car has the more likely it is to break or need expensive repairs. Parts and systems also add weight and therefore cause more fuel to be wasted. We need better, primitive cars that are designed to last decades with little maintenance or repairs. Examples could include a stainless steel floor pan which will never rust or a synthetic floor pan and firewall which can not rust. Body panels could be made by Rubbermade so that they do not dent, rust etc.. A 1000 cc engine can provide too much power these days. The best car engines may be as small as 750cc with good engineering, All brass and copper radiators would prevent premature death on many engines. Manual windows need few repairs compaired to power windows. Early VW beetles had a superior heating system that was fairly bullet proof. AC systems should usually be avoided as they add weight and complexity. Dash boards should be quick and easy to remove as should wiring harnesses. Modern brakes are lousy in that they require too freequent repairs and maintenance. If we standardize brake rotors, calipers and master cylinders we can offer super low prices on brake repairs. It may well be possible to produce better cars for 6K than cars now selling for 30K and the operational expenses could drop to near zero. One example of stupidity was getting rid of the 5 mph safety bumpers. Those bumpers saved billions in car repairs. Yet politicians got rid of safety bumpers. Those bumpers also saved a few lives.

Government regulators to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandating bleeding-edge, expensive technology is dumb.

Crash Imminent Braking (CIB) not such a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love warning systems; it is a great idea. Crash imminent braking (CIB), however, I'm not so sure about. For example, the NHTSA had found that the Acura MDX will apply brakes when it sees a non-threatening metal plate on the road:

http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NVS/Vehicle%20Research%20&%20Test%20Center%20(VRTC)/ca/Crash%20Avoidance%20Publications/811795.pdf

This is a little different then the usual cost-benefit arguments used for most safety systems. For example, it is true that more people are saved by seat-belts then are trapped by them just like more people are saved by air bags then are killed by air bag shrapnel. . .but all of those are 1:1 sceanrios in the false positive cases (are the occupants of *one* car saved or killed; the false positive damage is limited).

I see CIB as being fundamentally different; in a false positive case it has the potential to kill many people. For example, with the MDX mentioned above; let's say that it sees a metal plate and slams on the brakes on the highway causing a pile-up? In all the NHTSA tests they used ballon-objects to test CIB -- which implies it will also activate when a tarp flies off a pickup truck. . . and potentially causing a pile-up.

Now cost/benefit becomes complex -- infrequent pile-ups caused by false positives vs more frequent individuals saved? I'm not so sold on it. . .at least yet. . .

Ummmm

[Anonymous Coward]

' a third of 2013's police-reported car accidents were the rear-end crashes and a "large number" of the drivers either didn't apply the brakes at all (what?!) or fully before impact.'

May they should teach those police drivers what the brake pedal does then?

Automatic brakes

[MTEK]

In Car and Driver's long term test of the KIA K900, the following incident happened:

At approximately 11,400 miles, the adaptive cruise control falsely identified a vehicle ahead and threw the K900 into a full panic stop on I-90 in southeastern Montana. A scary event. Could a giant bug have splattered on the radar’s lens? So far, we all have theories but no hard data.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2015-kia-k900-v-8-long-term-test-update-review

No thanks

[WaffleMonster]

A most dangerous category of automation is overly assumptive reflex actions based on incomplete knowledge of the situation.

What happens when I want to change lanes to avoid an accident and a computer has already decided to hit the breaks or apply them harder than intended? Now vehicle is turning and breaking at the same time probably in less than ideal conditions contributing to an initial event.

Only thing grosser than eating Cheetos and licking your fingers while texting and driving is making others pay for your cheesiness.

Well I recommend

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend they get smarter traffic lights.

Old anti-lock can cause accidents

[sdw]

I crashed and totaled my 2004 Mazda RX-8 about 18 months ago. A vehicle changed to my lane on the highway, then had to do a panic stop from 70mph to stopped. The normally amazing RX-8 brakes (and I had the high end braking package) failed in that circumstance. I had to do maximum braking. Anti-lock backed it off from a skid but never kicked back in. I rolled into the stopped vehicle in front of me at 30-40mph. You could see evidence on the road behind me: just a six inch skid, then nothing.

It would be good to handle more cases like this rather than the old methods of doing poorly in some braking (like here) to help people not good in snow.

Re:Old anti-lock can cause accidents

[stoatwblr]

" A vehicle changed to my lane on the highway, then had to do a panic stop from 70mph to stopped."

Why weren't you looking well ahead and slowing down already for the obstacle which caused the panic stop?

Far too many drivers only look 2-3 seconds ahead. You need to be looking and planning based on what's happening AT LEAST 12 seconds ahead, preferably 18-20

There's zero excuse for distracted driving. Your first task is to drive, everything else is secondary. I've gone as far as to tell passengers to shut the fuck up because I'm dealing with a difficult section of road on more than one occasion
(non-driver passengers often have no road sense. driver passengers usually know to shut up if things are getting complicated outside)

_Everyone_ thinks they're a good driver, regardless of actual ability, but even the best drivers have bad days and far too many people tailgate, lanechange without warning/looking or pay more attention to the inside of the cabin than the outside.

The sooner automated vehicles come along the better - it will enable driving tests to become substantially tougher without substantially increasing illegal driving.

On this side of the Atlantic driving tests are already tough (most people fail their first test), but the result has been that people drive around on learner plates for _years_ or simply don't bother at all.

Re:Old anti-lock can cause accidents

[david_thornley]

Why don't I look at the road 20 seconds ahead? Because I can't see that far in traffic, that's why. (I look as far ahead as I can, normally.) Other places I don't see far ahead are in a blind curve or over a hill.

What about when I get really mad

[Anonymous Coward]

and I want to ram the car in front of me?

Who writes like this? Americans...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The former uses sensors to activate the brakes if a crash is imminent and the driver already hasn't."

WTF?

"and the driver already hasn't".

I think this should say "and the driver hasn't already applied the brakes" (who says "activate the brakes"?)

American idiots.

not where the brakes need be applied

[thrig]

Well, if you like throwing money at symptoms, I guess this might help (how much will it cost?). Won't do anything for the broken road design, where the Federal manual literally defines a street as "see: highway." Speed on, car-sitters. Meanwhile, those looking for a less, ah, passive role in their daily transportation options might instead consider what the Strong Towns folks are saying.

The technology is not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

i have a citroen that detects imminent crashes and flashes up a warning and pulls the seatbelt. This often happens when a the car in front turns into a side road and i pass close behind. If my brakes went on it would cause an accident behind me.

I own an Infinity g35 coupe, and ehh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever designed this thing was some kind of metrosexual daredevil that was all about looks and let safety fall by the waist. This thing is outright dangerous in the snow. Anything over a few inches of snow and I work remotely. Makes me appreciate the safety of my old ford explorer.

Regulate Thyself

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the kind of bang for the buck we have grown to rely on from this government. Smarter brakes make all the sense because apparently we can't have smarter drivers operating their vehicles without texting, eating Big Macs and fries and applying make-up and rouge and lipstick and did I mentions hunting from their windows, road rage and all out brawls while diving drunk or high as a kite, and don't even get me started on geriatrics and brail.. unless the government considers regulating itself.

Autonomous Early Braking

[Ottibus]

In the EU this is called Autonomous Early Braking and is effecively mandatory on all new cars (you don't get an NCAP rating without it). The argument, as others have explained, is not that this technology is foolproof but that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

I've no idea if EU cars will keep this feature in US models, but it would be great if we could use the same terminology on both sides of the Atlantic.